The Murder of Marilyn Monroe (10 page)

“It’s been a long time, but Hall wasn’t simply another set of hands at the wheel,” Larry Flynt himself wrote in the May 1986 issue of
Hustler
magazine. “Hall’s father had been the doctor Schaefer first asked to ride with him when he began his ambulance business . . . In a court case, Schafer testified that Hall drove an ambulance for him, and Hall was photographed in uniform by a newspaper, hauling a body from a crime scene [on October 4, 1962].” Refer to fan newspaper
Runnin’ Wild: All About Marilyn
in the October 1993 issue, Number 12, to see this picture of James Hall.

In 1992, on
The Marilyn Files
live TV special, James Hall explained why Murray Liebowitz was paired with him on the call to Marilyn’s house: “Back in 1962, I rented an apartment, my wife and I, and my regular partner Rick [Charles Greider] and his wife rented the apartment next door to us. The apartment house manager was Murray Liebowitz and we all worked together at Schaefer’s Ambulance. Rick wanted that night off and had Murray fill in for him.”
¹¹

WHO THE HELL IS KEN HUNTER?

In December 1982, weeks after James Hall’s story appeared in the
Globe
, a man by the name of Ken Hunter claimed to the District Attorney’s Office that
he
, not James Hall, had accompanied
his
partner Murray Liebowitz to Marilyn Monroe’s home during “the early morning hours of August 5, 1962.” This is odd since Marilyn died
before
midnight. Nevertheless, Hunter claimed to the District Attorney’s Office they were in and out within minutes after observing that Marilyn appeared to be dead before they arrived on the scene.

Anthony Summers wrote, “In 1985, I talked on several occasions to the late Walter Schaefer, who was then still running the ambulance company he founded. He confirmed, with utter certainty, that a Schaefer ambulance was called to Marilyn’s home. Asked whether Murray Liebowitz was one of the crew, he said, ‘I know he was.’” On December 14, 1982, the District Attorney’s Office conducted the following tape-recorded interview with an unconvincing Ken Hunter:

As recorded on page 16 of the district attorney’s report, Ken Hunter stated that, upon arriving at Marilyn’s home, he and Murray Liebowitz noticed she was already dead and left a few minutes later. This scenario, if it were to be believed, makes it nearly impossible for Marilyn’s next-door neighbors to the west, Abe Charles Landau and his wife Ruby Landau, to claim to have seen an ambulance when they arrived home around midnight. After all, they would have had to see it within the few minutes Hunter said he was on the scene, which is highly unlikely. That gives the Landaus approximately five minutes to spot the ambulance before it’s gone.

As for Ken Hunter’s December 14, 1982, interview, during an early part of the recording, Hunter volunteered to Tomich, “I know that Hall wasn’t there. Period.” When Tomich asked Hunter if he could remember the name of his partner, Hunter told him, “I’m almost positive it was Liebowitz.” As for Hall’s story, Hunter was adamant: “The doctor wasn’t even in the room!” he asserted before concluding, “It just looked like an accidental suicide.” Talking with Tomich about the extent of his employment with Schaefer Ambulance, Hunter’s recollection was, at best vague and sketchy:

From the evidence presented, we can safely conclude that James Hall and Murray Liebowitz were the Schaefer Ambulance attendants who went to Marilyn’s home,
not
Ken Hunter.

On September 11, 1993, Donald Wolfe interviewed former Schaefer Vice President Carl Bellonzi. He stated that Ken Hunter only started working for Schaefer in the mid-1970s. Bellonzi also assured Wolfe and Margolis that Ken Hunter couldn’t have gone to Marilyn’s house the night she died because Hunter didn’t work for Schaefer Ambulance until the mid-1970s, years
after
Marilyn’s died and, even then, never in the Los Angeles area but in Orange County.

“Hunter wore glasses and he was kind of heavyset,” Bellonzi recalled to Jay Margolis. “He wasn’t really fat. He was just big and heavy. Hunter used to tell a lot of tall stories, lies about things that are not possible. Like an old-time Seder telling stories. Things he says he’s done but nobody ever did believe him.”

James Hall’s Social Security number and his January–December 1962 employment records, shown clearly in
The Marilyn Files
documentary, confirm that he did, in fact, work for Schaefer in August 1962. What’s more, Donald Wolfe tracked down a
Santa Monica Evening Outlook
photo of James Hall in his Schaefer Ambulance uniform dated October 4, 1962, and the
Runnin’ Wild: All About Marilyn
fan newspaper displayed the same photograph. See Donald Wolfe’s article in the October 1993 issue, Number 12, entitled, “The Ambulance Chase.” So, who was Ken Hunter, a man who took it upon himself to lie to the D.A.’s Office? Quite simply, the Kennedys hired Hunter to discredit James Hall’s account.
¹²

FAMOUS CLIENTS WERE COMMONPLACE AT SCHAEFER AMBULANCE

Walt Schaefer was the president of Schaefer Ambulance Service. In Culver City and Santa Monica, it was called California Ambulance Service. Funeral Director Allan Abbott informed Jay Margolis, “I knew Schaefer. We both bought our cars from the same place. The same company that built hearses also built ambulances, at least in those days.” Born Schaeffer (German), he later changed his name to Schaefer (Jewish). Schaefer Ambulance treated innumerable famous clients throughout the years. In fact, according to former ambulance attendant Edgardo Villalobos, Schaefer even had a famous cousin who was none other than Mae West.

Villalobos explained to Jay Margolis, “Mr. Schaefer was involved with all these people, including celebrities. He had a lot of connections. I used to be a fighter so I acted as a bodyguard for Mr. Schaefer. He always took me places with him. He went to all these big events. I got to meet Governor Jerry Brown. The President at the time once gave him an award, which said: ‘The most successful businessman in the country.’ Mr. Schaefer hung it up in his office.

“Schaefer is dead but the plate is still there. He used to take me and my wife on a couple of trips to have fun. One time when we were flying to Mexico, Bob Neuman was the pilot and Mr. Schaefer took over the control and he made jokes like ‘Let the plane go down’ with my first wife acting worried. I was just a regular ambulance driver but he took to me and I got close to him. I liked Schaefer a lot. We had drinks with our families and it never stopped. I worked for Mr. Schaefer for forty years.”

Former Schaefer Vice President Carl Bellonzi informed Jay Margolis, “Villalobos was one I trained. I was there at Schaefer for forty-five years.” If his memory is correct, Bellonzi said he became vice president in 1985. Bellonzi stated, “I remember there was a Hall.” Bellonzi says he also remembers Murray Liebowitz and Villalobos’s regular partner the late Larry Telling.

Carl Bellonzi said even he transported celebrities. “I picked up Marie McDonald,” Bellonzi recalled to Jay Margolis. “She was having trouble with her back. Marie was called ‘The Body’ because she had some body. She was a real beauty.” Schaefer Ambulance attendant Edgardo Villalobos relayed to Margolis, “In Santa Monica, everybody used to get all the celebrities. We did too [at the main station on Beverly and Western] but not as much as they did. I transported a lot of movie stars. Mr. Schaefer made a beautiful stretch limo for the VIPs. I was wearing a very elegant suit. We used to take celebrities and ambassadors in the VIP car which we called ‘The Diplomat.’

“I took George Burns’s wife [Gracie Allen] when she was having a fatal heart attack [on August 27, 1964] and she was struggling for her life. I was the attendant and George Burns was sitting right there in front. I’m watching her, facing her, giving her oxygen, and she was struggling. We took her to Cedars of Lebanon where she died the same night.

“I also transported Ward Bond. He and John Wayne were very good friends. Ward was a big guy and in
3 Godfathers
(1948) and all those westerns. He had a ranch in Texas. Before Ward died, me and my partner Larry Telling picked him up from his house over in Coldwater Canyon and he was there on a bridge. He had a heart attack. He saw us and he was a big guy so he said, ‘No, no, boys. I don’t want you to hurt your back.’ He said to walk him to the ambulance and then he’ll get in the stretcher. So he walked to the ambulance and we said, ‘Now we have to put you in the stretcher.’ When we finally got the stretcher ready for him, he says to us, ‘It’s a big load of shit that you’re picking up!’ We took him to Saint John’s Hospital. Two or three days later, the news said he died in his ranch in [Dallas] Texas [on November 5, 1960].

“I used to pick up Betty White’s husband [Allen Ludden] all the time. She wouldn’t allow anybody else but me. She said, ‘Where’s Edgardo? I’m not going if you don’t send Edgardo out! My husband will not want to go to the hospital!’ I used to be there ready for her in the air ambulance to take him to the hospital. They were very nice good-hearted people and they loved me and I loved them. She was very pretty and young so it had to be a long time ago.

“I picked up Lou Costello [on March 3, 1959] when he was having a heart attack. He was still talking and laughing. I thought maybe he was living in a big mansion but actually he lived in a little common apartment in the Valley and he died at the hospital. I met his daughter and she looks just like him!

“I transported the singer Betty Hutton two or three times to the hospital in an ambulance to Cedars of Lebanon in 1962 . . . Barbara Hutton, I used to transport a lot. She was married to a prince [Pierre Raymond Doan Vinh na Champassak from 1964 to 1966]. I used to pick her up at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, nobody else, only me and another guy. She had bodyguards and a lot of princes from the Middle East with her there. I always picked up Barbara at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel at the penthouse with her prince because she was married to a guy that was a prince so she became a princess.

“Barbara was a very generous person. She was always giving everybody money and presents. Every time we transported her from the penthouse at the Beverly Wilshire, we take her to the airport and she flew to the Middle East. She was an angel of a person and she loved everybody. I transported her a great number of times. They said something to do with her bones. She could not walk. Before we would take her, they would have us wait outside, and then we would go inside with the stretcher. Every time, Hutton wanted to request me. She always gave me and my partner a $500 tip. The guys I worked with kept saying, ‘You’re going to get Barbie!’”