Painter Is Arrested For Strangling Wife Los Angeles Nov. 2
The work of a criminologists and a woman's intuition combined to bring about the arrest of a 44 year-old house painter for strangling his wife and jamming her nude body in a steamer trunk, it was revealed today. John Kelley Sr. was arrested on suspicion of murder yesterday after a decomposed body found in the battered trunk on a vacant lot last Saturday was found to be that of his wife Margaret Theresa, 39. Sheriffs deputies said Kelley broke down under questioning and confessed strangling his wife during an argument nearly three weeks ago. The painter said he kept her body in the trunk at their home for five days but dumped it in the lot when their two children complained about a nauseous odor coming from the trunk. The break in the case came only a few hours after detectives said they were baffled by an odd assortment of clues. Sheriffs deputies would say only that an anonymous telephone caller pointed the finger of suspicion at Kelley. It was learned later however that Kelley's landlady Mrs. Hattie Bell McFarland, 72 first became suspicious of the painter. Mrs. McFarland said she became suspicious when Mrs. Kelley disappeared suddenly without saying (goodbye) to her children. Kelley had told Mrs. McFarland and his sons Richard, 7 and John Jr., 10 that his wife had gone to the bedside of a sick relative in Boston. The landlady said she and other neighbors smelled the victims body decaying in the trunk but thought it was a dead cat.
Huntingdon Daily News , November 2, 1951
The victim.
USC
The killer:
USC
The house:
USC
The trunk:
USC
The Granny detective:
USC
More
here. And
here.