Latest / True Crime California / TCC #27: The Greystone Mansion Murders

Transcript

TCC #27: The Greystone Mansion Murders · True Crime California

0:04
Speaker 1: Dark Cast Network. Out of the shadows come the best
0:07
indie podcasts. First came Love, then came Lies, Control and Murder.
0:19
I'm kai host of Love and Murder Heartbreak to Homicide,
0:23
the true crime podcast where I tell real stories of
0:26
relationships that were doomed bonds from the start, reacting with
0:30
raw honesty, passionate rants, and unfiltered frustration when justice isn't served.
0:36
I give you new full episodes every Monday, with many
0:40
cases every Wednesday and Friday. Go to Murderanlove dot Com.
0:44
That's Love and Murder backwards Murderanlove dot Com where you'll
0:48
uncover the twisted side of relationships that led to homicide.
0:59
Speaker 2: Everyone. Welcome to True Crime California. I'm your host, Cindy,
1:05
and I'm glad you're here. Hey, guys, Welcome back to
1:17
True Crime California. The plight of the indie podcaster is
1:21
never having a mic that is worth a shit, and
1:23
that's where we're at right now. So if this sounds bad,
1:26
I'm doing the best I can. I'm basically having to
1:29
make out with this thing to get it to not
1:30
sound like him in a hallway, which is interesting because
1:33
it's the same mic and the same program I've always used,
1:36
and suddenly today this is how it sounds. So let's
1:38
hope we can get this sounding better. Maybe the next
1:41
time I record it will be different. Who can say,
1:44
how's that for an intro? Everybody, Welcome back to the show.
1:48
I'm so happy to be here, and thank you all
1:50
for being here with me. It's my birthday tomorrow, and
1:54
I decided that for my second case of January, I
1:57
was going to do something that I actually find really interesting. Now,
2:00
as many of you have probably noticed, I mean, I've
2:02
done a couple like old school cases, I guess, but
2:05
mostly I stick to like nineteen seventies and earlier. This
2:09
is definitely an old school case, but in my mind
2:11
it's sort of like a special circumstance because it is
2:17
it's a location the murder, where the murders happened is
2:19
actually somewhere that I work, like fairly regularly for catering
2:22
because it is now a wedding venue, which is super ironic.
2:27
As usual, I'm just kind of starting with a stream
2:29
of consciousness and all will come to light soon. So
2:32
what I'm talking about is gray Stone Mansion. That's the
2:36
case I'm going to cover today, and This is sort
2:38
of a history lesson about la early US politics, and
2:42
then of course murder. So if you're into any of
2:44
those things or all of them, as I am, you're
2:46
probably gonna enjoy this. Before I get started, I just
2:49
want to address a few things. First of all, somebody
2:51
gave me a bad review because I swear too much,
2:53
to which I say, I've spoken this way since I
2:55
was like ten years old, which is kind of insane,
2:57
and I'm forty three tomorrow, so it's not going to change.
3:00
If you don't like it, don't listen. But going around
3:02
leaving negative reviews on indie podcasts is like very shitty energy,
3:08
like the type of people who actually take their time
3:10
to tear down small independent podcasters or small independent businesses
3:14
unless they're doing something super egregious. Get a fucking life, Okay,
3:19
Like that's ridiculous. Second, here's something that will probably get
3:23
me more bad reviews. Fuck Ice, Fuck this fucking fascist dictatorship,
3:29
bullshit country that we live in. I want to tear
3:32
all my hair out, just straight up. This is the
3:33
worst situation, and fuck it. I've always been like a
3:38
radical leftist, which basically just means I care about people,
3:41
which is like an insane, apparently thing to feel in
3:45
this day and age. But I hope you all join
3:48
me in caring about others and in caring about our world,
3:51
and in standing up to fascism, even though it is
3:53
extremely dangerous and very very scary to do so. Right
3:56
now anyway, Okay, let's get into the case. All right,
4:00
onto the case. But I do want to call out
4:02
that the politics of this case are definitely not something
4:05
that happened in a vacuum. And I would wager that
4:08
the way that this was handled and the way that
4:10
this kind of went down is very telling for how
4:13
our future unfolded. Like when you hear this case and
4:15
how everything kind of ended, you're like, oh, yeah, that
4:17
makes sense for where the fuck we're at right now. Anyway. So,
4:20
like I said, this is the case of the Greystone Mansion. Now,
4:23
for those of you who don't know, the Greystone Mansion
4:26
is a huge Tudor style mansion built in the late
4:29
nineteen twenties in what is now Beverly Hills. Tudor basically
4:33
means like castle like, so a lot of stone, very
4:36
old school, sort of like a precursor of Gothic style.
4:39
So there's a lot of pointy stuff going on, you know,
4:41
pointed rooftops, almost like a jagged, very like masculine look
4:45
to it. I could get more specific, but I think
4:48
we're all on the same page. Giant stone castle style house, right.
4:51
The house itself is forty six thousand square feet and
4:56
at the time it was built, it was the second
4:58
largest house I guess gonna call it in California. It
5:02
was second only, of course to Hurst Castle up in
5:05
San Simeon near San Luis Obispo, which was built by
5:08
the publishing tycoon and all around horrible person, William Randolph
5:12
Hurst now Graystone. Sat on over four hundred acres, which
5:16
if you know anything about la and like especially that area,
5:19
you know, that's an insane amount of land to have,
5:22
as the entire area at this point is completely developed.
5:26
So this was like way back in the twenties. Nothing
5:29
was developed. There was just open land, and the owners
5:32
of this home were just buying it up left, right
5:35
and center. At the time, the family who built this
5:39
mansion were one of the richest families in the world,
5:45
and it was none other than the Dohiny family, which was,
5:49
like I said, one of the richest and most powerful families.
5:52
I said in the country, but I think it is
5:53
actually in the world. The patriarch, sorry, the patriarch of
5:56
the family. Edward L. Do'heeny was an oil tycoon who
6:00
was actually the first person to drill for oil in
6:03
Los Angeles, which set off the oil boom in the
6:05
late nineteen eighties and early nineteen hundreds. Now, he also
6:09
drilled in Mexico and Venezuela, if that's ringing any bells currently,
6:14
and eventually founded the Pan American Petroleum and Transport Company
6:17
in nineteen sixteen. This company later became one of the
6:21
largest oil companies in the world in the nineteen twenties,
6:24
with Edward cashing in on World War One's need for
6:28
petroleum for the war, which also plays into later on
6:32
because during World War One, private interests had all of
6:35
the oil and they were selling it to the government
6:37
at a premium price. And let's just say, like, this
6:42
is why it's important to know your history, because when
6:44
you look at things like Venezuela and what's going on
6:46
there and sort of just our country as a whole,
6:49
when you hear about the way things came to be
6:51
from the past, it really helps inform you as to
6:53
how evil shit has been forever and why we're fucked now. Anyway,
6:58
let's get back to it. Actually came from modest beginnings,
7:02
with his family not having really any connections. And this
7:05
is a real story of a person who made their
7:06
money from nothing. Now that being said, he did so
7:09
through various unscrupulous means, to be sure, and that's actually
7:13
at the center of this whole thing. You know, drill
7:15
for oil in Mexico as an American without pulling some strings,
7:18
greasing some palms, et cetera. Edward married once, but his
7:23
first wife committed suicide after they divorced in eighteen ninety nine.
7:26
We'll talk about that a little bit more too. This
7:29
was after the couple had two children, a daughter who
7:31
was born very sickly and died of heart related issues
7:34
at only seven years old, and a son, Edward Junior,
7:38
who went by ned and was born in nineteen eighty three. Now,
7:42
those of us who are familiar with la we all
7:44
know the Doheny name. Well, there's Doheeny Drive, which is
7:48
home to many very expensive mansions. There's Doheany State Beach,
7:52
which is popular among locals in Malibu, USC has a
7:55
Doughheany Memorial Library. And then there's also the Doheiny Mansion,
8:00
which was the family mansion while Ned was growing up.
8:03
The family bought the mansion in nineteen hundred from another
8:05
rich but ultimately insignificant family in terms of like political
8:09
sway or whatever, and this purchase was signaling the signaling
8:13
of a new era for the Dohiny family. Edward had
8:16
struggled for many years prior to striking it rich in oil,
8:19
and this purchase was a sign that things were only
8:21
going to get better, or at least that they should,
8:23
or at least monetarily. After purchasing the home in nineteen hundred,
8:27
the family kept buying the land around it until it stretched,
8:31
as I had said, to over four hundred acres, which
8:34
is an insane amount of land anywhere, but especially in
8:37
la As Ned grew up, he helped his father in
8:40
the business, and when he married his bride, Lucy, in
8:42
nineteen fourteen, the couple moved into a home they had
8:45
bought with Ned's money. Now, funny enough, this was the
8:48
same year that Edward bought the land Greystone would later
8:51
be built on, which makes this story seem almost inevitable.
8:56
The couple then went on to have five children by
8:58
the mid nineteen twenties, and their going family was in
9:00
need of more space, apparently to the tune of forty
9:04
six thousand square feet. Now, Edward Doheny Senior, rich beyond imagination,
9:10
was happy to gift this mansion to his son. He
9:13
had actually had it built as part of a design competition,
9:16
and I don't know that he had plans for it
9:18
beyond having it built. So it worked out very well
9:20
that his son wanted to move in, And in fact,
9:22
Ned and his friend who will talk about soon, did
9:25
a lot of the planning on this house knowing that
9:28
Ned would eventually move in. And now when I say
9:31
that he gifted it to him, I mean that Ed
9:34
Senior sold it to Ned for ten dollars and this
9:37
included the four hundred acres on which it sat. So
9:40
talk about nepotism, right, But as we'll see, this nepotism
9:46
comes at a very high price. Now, as I previously mentioned,
9:52
Ned grew up working for his father, and one thing
9:55
his father insisted all doheey men do, starting with Ned,
9:58
but continuing on with Ned's children, was to work with
10:01
their hands, at least for a short time, so they
10:04
would know the value of hard work, which is actually
10:07
pretty cool considering how spoiled the children of rich people
10:10
tend to be. And it's not to say that Ned
10:12
was not deeply spoiled, obviously, but this was one thing
10:16
that Edward got right. In my opinion. Ned's birth had
10:19
nearly coincided with the birth of the automobile. I mean,
10:23
not really, but like its popularity, and as he grew,
10:26
so did the public's interest in personal transportation. Ned himself
10:30
was a huge car enthusiast, so naturally he chose to
10:33
work in an auto shop to fulfill his father's wishes. Now,
10:36
it didn't hurt that Ned's high school sweetheart, Lucy, was
10:39
the daughter of a man who owned many auto repair shops,
10:41
which made it even easier for Ned to get a
10:43
quote job in this field. That it already likely would
10:46
have been really easy for him, you know, but like
10:48
this made it even easier. Ned was maybe twenty when
10:52
he started hanging around the auto shop, and there he
10:55
met Hugh Plunkett, who worked for his soon to be
10:58
bride's father. The two men hit it off, and Hugh
11:01
became Ned's personal mechanic chauffeur and later his right hand man.
11:05
With the official title of secretary. The two even served
11:08
in the Navy together, with Ned promising you a job
11:11
upon their safe return and of course making good on
11:13
his promise. Now, Hugh had always been a blue collar
11:16
guy working as a mechanic before working for the Dohiny family,
11:20
and he was a very salt of the earth person.
11:22
Despite his connection to this very wealthy family. He was
11:25
one of the only outsiders to be let in on
11:27
any family secrets, which were plentiful. As you know, all
11:32
rich families have secrets. All families have secrets, but you know,
11:35
rich people probably have juicier ones. So this is interesting
11:39
as Hugh isn't from money but is still seen as
11:41
a trusted member of their inner circle, though as we'll see,
11:44
he's definitely not seen as family to be sure, there
11:48
is absolutely a line there, and we'll see that Hugh
11:52
was married at one point but ended up spending so
11:53
much time at the Doheny estate, mainly in the motor
11:57
pool or in one of their guest rooms, that his
11:59
wife finally divorced him, citing desertion as her reason for
12:03
the divorce, and it was granted. So that's how often
12:06
he was away from home, which is crazy. Now, when
12:10
I first started writing this, I made the assertion My
12:12
next sentence was, Hugh, it seemed, was becoming addicted to
12:16
a lifestyle that had been previously far out of his reach,
12:19
and as he became more entwined in the lives of
12:21
the Doohines, his personal life continued to fall apart. But
12:24
what I want to say here is as the case developed,
12:27
and as I learned more about the case, because I
12:29
knew it and I had some obviously preconceived notions, I
12:32
want to backtrack that statement. I want to make it
12:35
because I do think that his life became very entwined
12:38
with the Dohines, obviously, but I don't think that it
12:41
was the money that kept him there. And again we'll
12:44
get more into it, but just hold that in your
12:46
back pocket. The Greystone Mansion was finished in nineteen twenty eight,
12:51
and the family moved into the fifty five room home
12:53
in October of that same year, and with them came Hugh.
12:57
Though not officially, of course. However, he immediately laid claim
13:01
to a particular guest room, which became his office and
13:03
bedroom whenever he stayed at the house, which again was
13:06
very often now. Around this time, things weren't going super
13:11
great for the Dohiny family. Ed Senior, who, as I mentioned,
13:14
built his fortune from nothing. I also mentioned, did so
13:18
through various unscrupulous means. As with today, you don't become
13:23
a billionaire, which he was like that day's version of
13:26
through honest work. He was like a multi multi millionaire.
13:29
As you can imagine, being very rich and powerful meant
13:32
that Ned was also very well connected politically. Enter one
13:37
of the lesser remembered but still very significant scandals in
13:40
American history that of the Teapot Dome before Watergate. This
13:45
was a Watergate level scandal. And if you don't know what
13:48
Watergate is, look it up or just listen to this
13:50
and know they'reabout on the same level. Now, Teapot Dome
13:54
referred to an area in Wyoming that was oil rich,
13:57
to say the least. Further, there was another air next
14:00
to the dome that had even more oil, to the
14:02
tune of hundreds of millions of dollars worth, even back
14:05
in nineteen fifteen. Now, at first this oil was kept
14:09
for the US military to help keep their oil supply
14:11
steady and to avoid private businesses price gouging, because that's
14:15
how ED had made his money round one, so basically
14:19
to set up the military to not have to pay
14:21
private prices for oil. This was put into place by
14:24
President Taft in nineteen oh nine, but by the time
14:27
President Harding took an office in nineteen twenty one, the
14:30
oil was up for grabs, and Taft gave it to
14:33
I'm sorry, and Harding gave it to the Interior Department
14:36
to sell off rights to private oil barons. Now, the
14:40
way that this was supposed to happen is that the
14:43
oil companies were supposed to bid for the rights to
14:46
the land, and the government was supposed to take the
14:49
highest bidder right, and the person in charge of this
14:53
was the Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall. Now, Albert
14:57
Fall and Ed Doheeny were tight from way back in
15:00
the eighteen eighties, before either of them had made a
15:03
name for themselves, and they were a similar type of man, rugged, hardworking,
15:08
sly and willing to do whatever it took to get ahead.
15:11
The two remained in touch as they both rose through
15:13
the ranks, one in the private sector and one in
15:15
the government. And when the time came to auction off
15:18
the land, wouldn't you know it, Ed somehow knew exactly
15:22
how much to bid for the most prosperous portion of
15:24
the land available without having any competition or anybody else
15:29
trying to get it. Now, it's not exactly clear how
15:32
this scandal came out, but there are always whistleblowers around
15:35
and I salute them honestly. Now, there was another oil
15:38
baron who got his hands on a different part, and
15:40
he was also part of this whole case, but I
15:43
want to really focus on Ed because that's what the
15:45
story's about. So in this case, the oil fields were
15:49
awarded to their bidders in mid nineteen twenty one, and
15:51
by early nineteen twenty two, scandal was already in the
15:55
air and in the news. Fall and Dohini were under
15:59
investigation by the government Doheny for offering and Fall for
16:03
accepting a bribe to the tune of one hundred thousand
16:06
dollars for insider information related to the purchase to the
16:10
rights to drill at Elk Hills, which was the lot
16:13
next door to Teapot Dome. Now, at first, President Harding
16:17
backed Fall, saying he would never do such a thing,
16:19
but as things became more and more clear, he distanced
16:22
himself rather quickly and condemned Fall for all of his
16:25
alleged actions. In return, Fall resigned, but that did not
16:30
stop the fallout. Now, Dowheeny and other oil baron were
16:33
put on trial for their activities, but it didn't even
16:37
stop there. And also they weren't put on trial for
16:39
quite a long time. It's a really drawn out thing.
16:41
I think because these two men were so rich and powerful,
16:44
they were able to sort of stave this off. So
16:46
there's multiple proceedings and interviews and potential trials all through
16:50
the nineteen twenties, and it's a very entangled web. But
16:53
essentially the government is building a case, trying the men,
16:57
interviewing all of their code conspirators for about nine years now,
17:02
about seven years before this really comes to a head. Now.
17:06
To clarify, when I say co conspirators, I'm talking about Ned.
17:11
You see, while Ed Senior was the one to pony
17:13
up the money for the bribe, it was his son
17:15
Ned and Ned's faithful best friend and secretary, Hugh, who
17:19
brought the money to Fall in Washington, d c. In fact,
17:23
investigators were able to track exactly what happened with the bribe,
17:27
noting that Ned and Hugh traveled first to Ned's New
17:30
York apartment, stayed a few days while visiting the bank
17:33
to take out exactly one hundred thousand dollars from Ned's
17:36
bank account so that it wouldn't be as traceable, and
17:38
then traveled to Washington, d C. To the Waldman Park
17:41
Hotel to hand deliver the money to Albert fall Now.
17:46
Because of this, Ned and Hugh were both very likely
17:48
to be put on trial, and at a minimum were
17:50
called to the court multiple times to explain themselves. By
17:54
nineteen twenty four, it was clear that not only would
17:56
Ed Senior be indicted, but Ned also and possibly still Hugh, though,
18:00
who was really only the driver and didn't seem to
18:02
profit from this deal in any like direct way. I mean,
18:05
these are his employers, so he probably you know, they
18:08
make money. He makes money, but not like direct Now.
18:11
In nineteen twenty six, Ned went on trial but was
18:13
somehow found not guilty, though he was still able to
18:16
be charged again under similar crimes, which is exactly what
18:19
happened in nineteen twenty eight, and this time Hugh was
18:23
also charged. Now it seems that the reason that the
18:26
prosecution was going after these men was to get them
18:28
to roll over on Ed senior, since he was clearly
18:31
the mastermind of everything. But that's a really common prosecutorial
18:37
kind of thing where they try to go after the
18:40
lower guys to get them to roll over on the
18:42
bigger guy, and if they don't, then at least they
18:44
put those guys in prison. Right now, of course, this
18:47
was an extremely stressful time for the Dohiny family, but
18:50
it was probably even more so for Hugh considering he
18:53
wasn't really family, so the Dohinys could withdraw their support
18:57
of him at any time. This is a very Carrie
19:00
As situation for him to be in and for everyone else. Now.
19:03
Albert Fall ended up being convicted in nineteen twenty nine
19:06
on bribery and conspiracy charges, but we'll circle back to
19:10
that in a minute, because the way this all ends
19:12
up feels very germane to our current political climate. Let
19:14
me tell you anyway, as I had noted previously, the
19:18
mansion was being built while all of this was going on,
19:21
which Ned and Hugh, like I said, were very involved with,
19:24
and Hugh was going through a divorce. So lots of
19:27
bad and stressful things happening in the Dohani world at
19:29
this time, and everything was a bit we'll just say
19:32
crazy now. As I mentioned, Albert Fall was convicted and
19:37
sentenced in nineteen twenty nine to one year in prison
19:40
for his crimes, So very much a slap on the hand.
19:43
That being said, something much more awful also happened in
19:46
nineteen twenty nine in the late hours of February sixteenth,
19:50
when Hugh Punkett came over unannounced to the Graystone mansion
19:54
and he and Ned went into his room to discuss
19:56
some serious business. This is at least what Lucy said.
20:00
He may never know the true story or all of
20:02
the details, but I'm giving you what I got now again.
20:05
Accounts of what happened next very greatly and the truth
20:09
has never fully come to light. But what we can
20:11
say is at around two am, Lucy and the family doctor,
20:14
doctor Ernest Clyde Fishbaugh, called the police to report two
20:18
men dead at the house. When police arrived, they found
20:21
thirty one year old Hugh on the ground, face down
20:24
and spread eagle. He had been shot in the head
20:27
and had fallen in a way that moved the rug
20:29
beneath him. In his hand was a cigarette that burned
20:32
all the way down and actually singed his hand. So
20:36
seems like he was shot unexpectedly. I'm just gonna throw
20:40
that in right now. That's just my personal assessment. And
20:43
on the ground about ten feet away was a second body,
20:46
that of Ned Doheeney. Ned was on his back with
20:49
a clear bullet wound in his head, so both of
20:51
them had head wounds. It had entered from the left,
20:55
exited through the right temple, and lodged in the wall.
20:59
A gun posed murder weapon was found still very warm
21:03
under Hugh Plunkett's body, which was strange as the shots
21:07
heard by Lucy had been fired over three hours earlier. Now,
21:11
according to Lucy, Hugh had come over very distressed and
21:14
locked himself away with Ned. While in another area of
21:17
the house, she heard sounds coming from the room, but
21:20
nothing too concerning. She then heard what sounded like a pop,
21:23
and then initially, she said, followed a few minutes later
21:26
by another pop. When she went into the room, she
21:29
found two men on the floor. Now, instead of calling
21:31
the police, she called the family doctor, who had been
21:33
out watching a play, but came immediately to her aid
21:37
Doctor Fishbaugh. She also called Ed Doheany, who came as
21:41
quickly as he could. At Doheeny Senior obviously, though, was
21:44
apparently gone before the police came, which is probably an
21:47
intentional move on the part of the family and probably
21:50
also pretty smart. Now, the story in the papers the
21:54
next day and for weeks following was this that Hugh, overwhelmed,
21:58
distraught and mentally and stable, killed first Ned and then
22:02
himself to avoid the shame of having to testify in
22:04
court or going to prison, which would have been the
22:07
last straw for a divorced, sickly man like Hugh. Now,
22:10
as you can imagine, this story was pushed by Ned's
22:13
very rich and powerful family and for many years was
22:15
considered the real story. Hugh Unstable killed Ned then himself. However,
22:22
even as immediately as that night, police saw another story
22:25
unfolding all together. They knew Lucy and the doctor were
22:29
being dishonest about the situation, and they knew this because
22:31
when they arrived it was clear that the bodies had
22:34
been moved, and both had a very rehearsed story to tell.
22:38
But even that story changed over time. Now. First, the
22:42
doctor said he had been at the home when the
22:44
shots were fired. He said that Lucy had called him
22:46
because Hugh was in such a state and she wanted
22:48
his help. Now, this story was part of a larger
22:51
narrative to paint Hugh as unstable, and the doctor was
22:54
a big part of that, claiming he'd been treating Hugh
22:56
for months for his anxiety and that is why he
22:59
was supposed there when everything happened. Even though initially Lucy said,
23:04
oh well, I heard, you know, shots and called the doctor,
23:07
then they both sort of changed the story to be like,
23:09
oh well, I called the doctor because they were fighting,
23:10
and then we both heard shots. And in fact, the
23:13
doctor took this story a little bit farther by saying,
23:16
not only had he heard the first shot, but when
23:18
he did, he went to the room where the noise
23:20
had come from and saw Hugh standing outside. When Hugh
23:24
saw him, he said, don't come in, then slammed the door,
23:28
and a moment later there was another pop. So obviously
23:31
they're making it sound like Hugh murdered ned saw the
23:35
doctor freaked out and killed himself, and then, of course,
23:39
you know, when they entered the room, both men were dead.
23:41
Now that's what they said at first, both men were dead. Now,
23:45
during their very fuse first fused first interview with the
23:49
doctor on the night of the murders, they already caught
23:51
him in a lie. He at first, like I said,
23:53
had he said, you know, both men were dead when
23:55
we walked in. Neither body had been touched, but police
23:58
knew they had, as the blood on ned Ed's face
24:00
had spread across his nose, as though he had been
24:03
laying one way then moved another before the blood had
24:07
a chance to dry, so it showed that the blood
24:09
had moved in two directions on his face. At this
24:13
when they told him, hey, doc, you're full of shit,
24:16
he changed his story entirely to include a very large
24:20
detail that ned had in fact still been alive for
24:22
about twenty minutes after he entered the room, and that
24:25
the doctor had tried to help keep him alive, which
24:28
I at that point, wouldn't you have called for help,
24:30
like an ambulance or something to actually try to keep
24:32
him alive. If you had a full twenty minutes of
24:35
him struggling to live, you would try to call in
24:38
the big guns, right pun intended? Anyway, Again, in the news,
24:42
Hugh was the murderer, and even the coroner's report bolstered
24:45
that argument, or at least what they released of it.
24:47
They said that Hugh had placed the gun to his
24:49
own head so hard that there were powder burns inside
24:53
his skull, which had been fractured in four places due
24:56
to the blast from the gun because he was pushing
24:58
it so hard against his head. They also confirmed that
25:01
Ned had been shot from six feet away and that
25:03
he had not lived for twenty minutes, but only for
25:06
a moment, which is convenient. They basically said, Oh, the
25:09
doctor wasn't totally lying when he said that, but he
25:12
was probably you know, stressed out, and it seemed like
25:14
a lot longer than it was, right, So everybody's telling
25:17
the truth here. However, this narrative still didn't sit right
25:21
with Hugh's family, nor the main investigator, Les White, who
25:25
was on the scene the night of the murder suicide.
25:27
So let's get into why this is bullshit? Shall we have.
25:31
I've left out some of the details of the crime
25:32
scene because I want to use them here to explain
25:34
why these people are full of shit, if that makes sense. Now, First,
25:40
we have the bodies being moved. Why do that if
25:43
there's nothing to hide? Right, I mean, that's not even First.
25:45
First we have them waiting three hours to call, but
25:48
that's kind of a given that that's ridiculous. Beyond that,
25:52
why were the bodies moved? Second, again, why call the
25:55
doctor and your family before you call the police? Also
26:00
I said before, why not call for help if your
26:02
husband is still alive. Also, upon further investigation, which of
26:06
course this was not released to the public, it was
26:08
found that in order for Hugh to have shot Ned
26:10
and had the bullet lodge in the wall where it
26:12
was found, he would have had to have been on
26:13
his knees beneath Ned, which sounds highly implausible. Also, there
26:19
were powder burns on Ned's head as well, meaning the
26:22
gun was very near his head when the trigger was pulled,
26:25
not six feet away, And the fact that the gun
26:28
was that close to Hugh's head could have very easily
26:30
meant someone else was pressing it against him. In fact,
26:34
it almost makes more sense in my opinion, as it's
26:36
not that easy to push something against your own temple
26:38
that hard, like, not as hard as someone with more
26:41
leverage could do, you know. Also, police immediately were like,
26:46
this gun is way too hot to have been used
26:49
three hours ago and then left under somebody's body. And
26:53
in fact, when they did ballistics testing, which they did
26:55
back then, believe it or not, they were unable to
26:58
replicate the temperature of the gun when they found it
27:00
three hours after the shooting, so they shot it fresh
27:03
and it was never as hot as it was when
27:05
they found it supposedly three hours after it had been fired.
27:08
So all of this sort of like at the scene
27:10
evidence really points to what the you know, the narrative
27:15
in the news and pushed by the family, the Dahini
27:18
family is kind of bullshit. There's also a finer point
27:21
that like, I'm not really good at explaining, but essentially
27:25
they also disproved what the doctor said about Ned being alive.
27:28
I'm sorry, not ned with about Hugh being alive and
27:30
slamming the door in his face by looking at the
27:32
placement of both the cigarette and the gun in his hand,
27:35
and I realized it's like, well again, I'm gonna leave
27:38
it because I'm not very good at explaining it. But
27:40
essentially what they were saying is like he wouldn't have
27:43
been able to slam the door and then shoot himself
27:45
as quickly as the doctor said because of like the
27:47
placement of the gun and his body in XYZ. So anyway,
27:51
all of this shows on the scene that they were lying.
27:56
Now beyond this, Ned, whose family the Dohinys, were de Catholics,
28:01
was not buried in the family cemetery, which was on
28:06
like Holy Catholic land right, Like I'm an atheist, I'm
28:09
not sure what you call that, but like it was
28:11
in like a Catholic cemetery. Now, instead, he was buried
28:15
in a Christian cemetery in Glendale actually, and only about
28:20
fifty yards from him Hugh was buried. Now, why is
28:25
this significant Because in Catholicism you cannot kill yourself and
28:28
if you do, you can't be buried in their cemetery
28:31
and you also won't go to heaven. So the fact
28:33
that they did not bury him is in that you know,
28:36
family plot is very suspicious. My assumption and the assumption
28:40
of many, is that his family probably told their priest
28:43
the truth and he forbade Ned from being buried in
28:47
their cemetery. So all of this leads us to believe,
28:50
and this is the prevailing theory now that Ned first
28:53
killed Hugh and then himself. Now as to why he
28:56
did it, that remains uncertain. But there are a few theories,
28:59
and some of them can work in conjunction with one another.
29:02
So let's discuss now, First, there's the obvious the men
29:08
were being forced to testify in court, both against each
29:10
other and also against Ned's father, who was facing you know,
29:14
potentially a decent prison sentence if he was convicted, and
29:17
is also a very powerful man. So it's very very scary,
29:21
and obviously this can be scary for each man differently,
29:23
But in the end it was Ned's father whose reputation
29:26
and freedom were at risk, and it was Ned himself
29:29
who faced the harsher charges of the two, as he
29:32
was seen as the bagman, having himself delivered the money
29:35
while he was just the driver. Now beyond this, there
29:37
were other signs pointing to Ned being the better bet
29:40
for a murder suicide for the perpetrator of such members
29:44
of his family, mostly on the side by marriage. On
29:47
like Lucy's side, claimed that Ned suffered from depression, which
29:51
makes a lot of sense when you think about it.
29:53
His mother died when he was young, and his father
29:55
was away making his fortune, leaving Ned very much alone
29:58
for most of his youth. This was probably very traumatizing
30:02
and definitely made for a very lonely childhood. Even in
30:06
his adulthood, there photos of him like before I really
30:09
knew a lot about this case. I would look at
30:10
photos of him and I was like, this man looks
30:12
really not sad, just unhappy. It's not even like an
30:17
emotion of the moment where he's just like particularly sad.
30:20
In that instance, every photo of him, he just looks unhappy.
30:25
Not to mention that his mother committed suicide over his
30:28
father's leaving her, which doesn't necessarily mean anything, but it
30:31
does point to the possibility that depression runs in their
30:34
family now. A man named Anson Lisk Junior, whose uncle
30:39
was called to the scene the night of the men's deaths,
30:42
later said that it was a known fact that Ned
30:44
lived in another part of the house away from Lucy.
30:47
Anson is Lucy's nephew, so it was his father, Lucy's
30:51
brother who was called to the house, and so the
30:55
family it was kind of like an open secret that
30:58
they were sort of living away from each other. And
31:00
I mean, it's a big enough house to do it
31:01
right now. As for why, he said that this was
31:05
due to his moods and his depression, which Lucy wanted
31:08
to shelter the children from, which also kind of helps
31:11
with this theory, but it also lends credibility to another theory,
31:16
which I believe, if true, was a factor in this mess,
31:19
but definitely not the whole reason. See Anson also said,
31:24
very matter of factly in an interview years after all
31:27
of this, that Ned and his secretary were in a relationship,
31:32
his secretary being a Hugh. Now, this rumor has been
31:35
around since the day of the deaths, but in his
31:36
words and in his matter of fact way of talking,
31:39
this was very much a known thing. Also, it makes
31:42
sense that they would be lovers, because why else would
31:44
Hugh spend nearly every night in their mansion, in the
31:47
same half of the mansion where Ned also stayed far
31:49
away from Lucy and the children. You know, why would
31:52
he let his marriage dissolve while spending all this time
31:54
with someone who was at most a friend and it
31:56
were simply his employer. Right. And I'm not saying that
31:59
marriages don't fall apart like this where someone is away
32:01
from the home because of work or whatever. But you
32:04
know where he was specifically and why he was there,
32:08
he really seems It just makes me wonder. It also
32:11
makes a bit more understandable how tensions ran so high
32:14
between the two men, and why Ned wasn't buried in
32:17
the Catholic plot with the rest of his family, because like,
32:19
even if he was the victim, which nobody believes at
32:22
this point, if he was in a gay relationship, that's
32:25
another way to not get buried with the rest of
32:27
the family. Right now, there's a ton of other evidence
32:30
pointing to this, but I think I've made my point here,
32:33
and and like there's an argument that the whole gay
32:35
storyline was more to besmirch the Doahiny family name or
32:39
for the sake of selling papers, you know, once the
32:42
Dohiny's no longer kind of had a stranglehold on the
32:45
papers because it's all while it was something people talked
32:48
about back then, it wasn't really reported until later when
32:51
it was like safe to do so. But I do
32:53
think it's worth mentioning because even you know, close friends
32:57
of the family at that time mentioned that they were
33:00
far more than just employer or employee. So what that
33:03
meant at the time, it's hard to say. Like people
33:05
were friends with Ed Senior were like, oh yeah, those
33:09
two men were way closer than just friends, and they
33:11
never said what they meant by that, But like it
33:13
all kind of points to that. Now. In nineteen thirty six,
33:17
Les White, the detective on the case who was shut
33:19
down by his boss, the media, and the Dohiny family.
33:22
You know, it wasn't really allowed to investigate any of
33:25
the things that he noticed that night or afterward released
33:28
a memoir about many high profile cases he'd worked on
33:32
in Los Angeles, definitely including the Greystone Mansion murders. Now,
33:37
it's hard to find a copy, and it was definitely
33:39
hard back then and especially in Los Angeles, and Hugh's
33:42
brother went to try to buy one and was told
33:45
by many of the bookstores that he went to that
33:47
the Doahiny family bought every copy available, presumably to keep
33:52
it out of the hands of their peers in the
33:54
LA area. So what happened may never truly be known,
33:59
but I believe most people believe at this point that
34:01
Ned killed first Hugh and then himself. Now, as far
34:05
as his motive, I think his main motive was to
34:08
spare his father from prosecution for his crimes, as the
34:11
family had sort of looked at different ways to avoid
34:14
having Hugh testify, including having him check into a mental
34:18
health clinic, which back then not super nice places we
34:22
would call them like sanitariums uh, to avoid having to
34:25
testify now. As a note, this is where much of
34:28
what the doctor said about Hugh came from. Basically, they
34:30
spun the tale that Hugh had been mentally unwell for months,
34:33
maybe even a year, due to infected teeth and the
34:36
stress of his divorce and the scandal. This narrative was
34:40
first created so that there would be a paper trail
34:42
if he did in fact agree to go to the
34:43
mental hospital as directed by the Dohini family, but it
34:47
worked out well to use it to frame him for
34:49
Ned's murder when it was most likely, like I said,
34:51
the other way around. And so I think when you know,
34:54
Ned finally realized, like Hugh's not going to cooperate, He's
34:58
not going to do what we want. Plus he's already depressed,
35:01
Plus he's very stressed out about what's gonna happen with
35:03
his father. He just decided we just both have to die. Now.
35:07
Whether or not there was a romantic element, I can't say,
35:09
and I don't know that it matters. What does matter
35:12
is clearing the name of a man who fell victim
35:14
to a very wealthy and powerful family who would apparently
35:16
do anything to keep their name clean in the media,
35:19
which I hope I've helped to do. I hope that
35:21
I've helped to clear Hugh's name. Now, as for what
35:25
happened to good old Ed Doheeney Well, unlike the other
35:28
oil man to give Fall a bribe, Doheany walked entirely free,
35:32
acquitted on all charges. And the other man who gave
35:36
Albert Fall a bribe also did not go to prison
35:39
for bribery or conspiracy. He went for contempt of like,
35:44
not contempt of court, but like something similar to that,
35:47
which is really interesting because Albert Fall was found guilty
35:49
of accepting bribes, but nobody was found guilty of bribing him,
35:54
which is a very interesting thing and and maybe not
35:57
so much interesting as telling of the way that power
36:01
and powerful men work in our society. I would say
36:04
to this day, so Ed escaped, and all it took
36:09
was the life of his son and his son's best friend.
36:13
Was it a price worth paying? I don't really know.
36:15
What I do know is shows a strong pattern that
36:18
is still alive and well in our country. If you're rich,
36:21
you can get away with anything, including murder. You can
36:25
buy the newspapers and tell them what to print. You
36:28
can bribe the government to give you all the means
36:29
to make money while others go without. And as for Greystone,
36:34
it now belongs to the city of Beverly Hills and
36:37
sits on I think only about twenty acres of land.
36:39
The rest has been given to the city or sold off,
36:42
and some of it actually is the home of the
36:43
city's water supply, which is pretty crazy. The house itself
36:47
hosts children's summer camps, they do tours of the interior
36:51
of the home, and as I mentioned, private events like
36:54
weddings which I help to cater. And that's about it.
36:58
That's the history of Teapot Dome, of Doheeny, the Dohiny family,
37:05
and the Graystone murder suicide as committed by ned against
37:12
Q Plunket and covered up by the family. All right,
37:16
there it is, guys. I started recording this in mid January.
37:20
It's February first, and I'm finally posting this. I'm so
37:23
sorry it took so long. That is a testament to
37:26
how much work I've been doing and how sick i've been. Again,
37:28
I sort of got I feel you. I'm always telling you, guys,
37:30
I'm sick, but with a ten year old, I am
37:32
always sick. And if any of you have kids, you
37:34
know it because you're always sick too. It makes it
37:36
hard to record because I sound like a psycho and
37:38
I'm like voices all crackly and awful, where I'm like sniffling.
37:41
It's terrible, so I'm trying to trying to avoid that
37:44
as much as possible, but it makes things take a
37:47
little longer. So I apologize, and I thank you all
37:49
for your patience with these and I think you all
37:51
for listening and supporting, and I hope this has been
37:54
a great story for you, despite you know, the sad,
37:58
the murder elements. Please like, rate review, tell your friends,
38:03
uh and until next time, stay safe.
38:08
Speaker 1: M h
38:18
Speaker 2: M hmm.