THE IDAHO DAILY STATESMAN

Boise, Idaho, U.S.A.

27 February 1939

Dancer Slain on Campus.

Spurned Suitor Sought In Slaying Of Dancer.

A bloodstained man’s glove was one of the meager clews to the

mystery slaying of 32-year-old Anna Sosoyeva (right), Russian

dancer and student of dramatics, slugged on the campus of Los

Angeles City college. She died later in a hospital. Capt. Dalton R.

Patton (left), of the Los Angeles  homicide squad, is holding a

bloodstained man’s glove found near the scene of the crime.

Los Angeles (AP)—A rejected suitor of Anya Sosoyeva, 32-year-old dancer and Goldwyn Follies film beauty, was sought by police tonight for questioning about her slaying on the Los Angeles City college campus.

The hunt for the spurned suitor started shortly after Dr. Frank Webb, county autopsy surgeon, reported that two examinations had failed to disclose that the stately blonde Miss Sosoyeva had been raped. She first was believed to have been criminally assaulted.

Roommate Gives Alibi

Captain D. R. Patton, chief of the police homicide detail, said that Beulah Ann Stanley, dramatics instructor and roommate of Miss Sosoyeva, was questioned today and gave a “satisfactory explanation” of her whereabouts before and since the slaying last Friday night.

An intensive search was instituted for Miss Stanley Saturday night after her mother, Mrs. W. D. Price of Redondo Beach, reported she had promised to come home and did not do so. Mrs. Price expressed the fear her daughter might have been killed by the same man who slew Miss Sosoyeva.

Possibly Linked With Cult

Authorities said Dr. Richard S. Murray, an osteopath, had reported that Miss Sosoyeva, Russian-born entertainer who once was in the Ziegfeld Follies and on vaudeville circuits, came to him about two weeks ago for a physical examination, complaining that she was indifferent to the attentions of men.

Mrs. A. L. Miller, associated with Dr. Murray’s clinic, told police she had seen Miss Sosoyeva several times in the company of “a large man who I have been told is a member of a strange cult on the Los Angeles City college campus”.

Captain Patton said an investigation was being made of various reports that the secret order, called the “Purple Cult,” held weird rites at the home of a faculty member [Regina Kahl].

Killed by Blow on Head

Miss Sosoyeva was killed by a blow directed with a 2 by 4 plank. She managed to stagger to the college auditorium, where she was to have appeared in an amateur play, and collapsed in the arms of a member of the cast, Wally Myar. Myar said she was unable to identify her assailant and cried out only that “someone hit me over the head . . . asked me ‘where are you going?’ ”

Miss Sosoyeva was attired in a Russian dancing tunic which she had donned in her apartment across the street from the auditorium.