THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

San Francisco, California, U.S.A.

5 March 1939

(page 9)

Anya Sosoyeva.

Los Angeles City College campus is but a stone's throw from tinseled Hollywood boulevard, but under its trees at night darkness is as thick as that in Sierra Madre's brush. Week ago Student Wally Meyer, bound for a Federal-sponsored dramatic class rehearsal, stumbled over an unconscious girl, heard her murmur, "Someone hit me on the head!"

Half-hour later police arrived to find the girl dead, identified her as Anya Sosoyeva, exotic Russian dancer and ex-follies figure. Death had come from a skull fracture inflicted by persons unknown. The girl was to have starred in the student production before a preview audience including a scattering of picture talent scouts.

Born Nina Susoff in Russia 32 years ago, the girl attended a San Francisco high school, was the widow of Lawrence Tulloch, a radio actor and central figure a decade ago in a Telegraph Hill murder mystery. Autopsy surgeons said she had not been attacked, that her murderer was probably not a sex fiend.

Entering momentarily into the affair was a vague secret order known in Hollywood outskirts as the "Purple Cult," explained as a religious group that the flaxen-haired victim had once or twice visited. Police were inclined to minimize its importance, concentrated on the theory that the tragedy was a revenge or grudge slaying, was certain it was the work of a lone man.