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THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.A. 27 February 1939 (page 1)
Slain Dancer’s Loves Traced.
Two Former Suitors Tell Their Stories and Are Released; Third Man Held.
Los Angeles, Calif.—Two former
suitors were questioned and released Monday in the slaying
here of pretty Anya Sosoyeva, dancer and partner in a play
with Walter Meyer, young Milwaukee actor and pianist.
While the dancers’ former suitors were being questioned, physicians reported after an autopsy that the 32 year old Russian danced had not been raped, as had been believed previously.
Bares Tempestuous Romance
One of the suitors, Kermit Anderson, a 34 year old accountant who told of “keeping company” with the former Ziegfeld dancer for several months, furnished proof to police that he had joined friends in a poker game at the time she was bludgeoned.
Police Capt. D. R. Patton quoted Anderson as saying that he had once lived at the same hotel as Miss Sosoyeva and during their brief but tempestuous romance she had scratched him twice in quarrels and he had slapped her once.
At San Francisco, the movie struck victim’s former home, 30 year old Stewart Johnson went to police headquarters Sunday night, saying he wanted to make a statement for the record to clear himself of any suspicion.
One Man Still Held
Police said Johnson told of his onetime friendship with Anya but declared he knew of no reason why anyone should want to take her life.
Los Angeles police still held for further questioning Bernard Sutton, 33, janitor, who was found in Barnsdall park a few blocks away from the college campus Friday night. Sutton is on probation on a morals charge. Two murder theories were advanced by Capt. Patton. He said the evidence indicated a “grudge allaying or the work of a sex fiend who lay in wait for a victim.”
The pretty dancer, born Nina Susoff, was struck as she hurried to the college auditorium to appear with Meyer in a parody playlet of “Idiot’s Delight.”
When she failed to appear at the scheduled time, Meyer went to look for her. He saw her staggering toward him on the campus, he told police.
“I grabbed her as she was about to fall,” said Meyer. “She told me a man hit her over the head.”
Meyer is Absolved
Meyer, who went to Los Angeles last November seeking a movie job, was absolved by the police of any part in the tragedy.
A fellow student in the federal sponsored night school, Kenneth Kremith, told police that Miss Sosoyeva, before lapsing into unconsciousness, cried out that she had been hit without warning by a man she never had seen before. Miss Sosoyeva died early Saturday of a skull fracture.
A collection of her letters, pictures, receipted bills and other effects was turned over to officers by Miss Beulah Ann Stanley, night school dramatic coach, who had befriended Anya and shared an apartment with her.
Miss Stanley said the dancer had been so despondent over a blighted love affair recently “that I had decided to sell my small coupe and give her enough money to go back to San Francisco.”
Mrs. A. L. Miller, associated with an osteopathic clinic, told police she saw 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.
Capt. 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].
Investigation disclosed that Miss Sosoyeva married Laurence Tulloch, actor and writer, when she was very young. He was twice tried for the fatal shooting in his San Francisco apartment of Mrs. Gertrude Hawkins Lavine, divorcee, but both juries disagreed. Tulloch died in 1932. |