Episode 6: Karyn Kupcinet
Hello,
Here we are again with another episode.
This is a random one I came across at some point I am not sure when but I was so interested in it that I wrote her name down on a pink post-it note and it’s been stuck to my computer monitor for months. So I decided to fully look into this one and see why I exactly wrote it down.
This is the murder of Karyn Kupcinet.
Here is the link to the episode in case you don’t want to read the post that goes along with it.
A little background info on Karyn.
Karyn Kupcinet was born Roberta Lynn Kupcinet on March 6, 1941, in Chicago to parents Irv Kupcinet, a gossip columnist, and his wife, Essee Solomon Kupcinet. Her parents called her Cookie. Her mother encouraged her to go into Acting. She got access to a lot of producers due to her father and his column in the Sun-Times. In 1961, Jerry Lewis offered her a role in the film The Ladies Man. She also appeared in several TV shows such as The Donna Reed Show, The Wide Country, G.E. True, Going My Way, The Andy Griffith Show, Death Valley Days, and Perry Mason, which was her last role that air after her death.
Now that we know some things about Karyn let’s talk about November 28th which is noted to be the last day of her life. I am going to a timeline of events with this one.
She had talked to her father on the phone earlier that day.
6:00 pm She talked to her Exboyfriend Andrew Prine on the phone to tell him about an abandoned baby left on her doorstep.
6:30 pm: She was scheduled to have dinner with Mark Goddard and his wife, Marcia Rogers Goddard, at their house in Beverly Hills
7:30 pm: She arrived by Taxi.
During dinner, the couple stated she didn’t really eat and she offed by moving her head at weird angles, her voice sounded funny, and her pupils seemed smaller than normal.
Mark did confront her about her strange behavior and she responded by putting her arms around him and crying. She told them she had taken a Miltown, which was used short-term to treat symptoms of anxiety and nervousness.
At some point during the meal, she told her friends the story about a baby that had been abandoned on her doorstep earlier that day.
At 8:30 pm, a taxicab arrived to take her home, and she promised to telephone the Goddards soon.
9 pm: Edward Stephen Rubin a freelance writer arrived at her house.
9:30 pm: Karyn apparently went for a walk and ran into Actor Robert Hathaway who she brought back joined the 2 of them. She also told them about the baby. The men stated they watched TV and drank coffee till she fell asleep. This makes me assume she either wasn’t drinking coffee or was on something stronger than canceling it out. One of them helped her to her room and watched her crawl in bed. He then went back to the living to watch TV with the other guy.
11:15 pm: The men left and made sure the door was locked behind them.
These men went to Hathaway’s apt where they were later joined by Karyn’s boyfriend Andrew Prine( who was his neighbor) and they watched television and talked until around 3:00 am.
Around 11:30 or 12:00 Prine called her after coming home from a date, in which Karyn told him the police came and got the baby. This story was never confirmed and was later proven to be false. Since there were no police reports of it from her area.
On November 30, The Goddards when to her apartment after she failed to telephone the couple as promised and that they had a "funny feeling" that something was wrong. They found her nude body lying on the couch at first assuming that she had died from a drug overdose. She had been dead for about 2 days.
During a search of her apartment, the police did find prescriptions for Desoxyn, Miltown, Amvicel, and other medications.
They also found a note written by Karyn that reflected in some detail her emotions regarding issues in her life (i.e., parents, self-image, problems with boyfriend) and people she admired. I found the note in Jame Ellroy’s book and it’s some pretty hard stuff of how she belittled herself. He also included some part of her diary she kept which is also just a hash.
Also in a Chicago Tribune article, a detective stated that “The apartment was all torn up. There must've been a tremendous struggle.”
They found several prints at the scene. One was Karyn, one was Rubin’s, then 2 sets they couldn’t match with anyone.
The LA County Coroner Harold Kade determined that her death was due to strangulation, because of a broken hyoid bone in her throat. Her death has been officially ruled a homicide.
Theories and Suspects.
Her boyfriend, Andrew Prine was one of the prime suspects. He stated during questioning that he had talked with Karyn twice by phone on the day before her murder. They had a lover's quarrel at the time due to some anonymous threat letters both he and Karyn had received. After her death police looked at them out they had actually been created by Karyn herself in an attempt to bring the couple back together. The police thought this was a good enough motive for murder. Also, he told the police he took a girl to a movie that night when he told Edward Rubin and Bob Hathaway he went to a Rodeo. He states that was on Tuesday he ran into the Actress there and they went out on Wednesday. She verified this with the police. He did take a Polygraph test and it was inconclusive. The parents believed that he had nothing to do with the murder.
.Edward Rubin since he was one of the last people to see her alive that night. Hathaway confirmed his series of events that night. He changed his story 3 years later that he a Hathaway went to the Raincheck room where he hung out with 3 girls after Hathaway left. Also that Andy didn’t come over that night it was the night before. Hathway backed this story up as well.
Robert Hathaway, who also was one of the last people to see her alive that night. Since he was with Rubin they both had the same story as what happened that night.
David Lange- Karyn’s neighbor who lived below her. In her father’s book, he stated that Karyn was actually the one who helped him get the apartment downstairs. Another neighbor state he walked into her apartment the night Karyn was murdered. He told police that he walked up to Karyn’s door on Friday night and jiggled the doorknob which was unlocked but didn't go in. He ran into some cops that night but didn’t tell them about that. When they tried to question him he had turned up missing. They did have a report from another woman stated he called her to say “ I killed her, you know” When the police finally spoke with him he stated that comment was a joke and that didn’t try her door Friday. Only to tell them he lied about that and he did try it but didn’t go in. He stated he was in bed with a girl the night she was killed. He did take a Polygraph test and it was inconclusive.
Italian-American Mafia: Apparently there was a woman, who dialed her local operator roughly twenty minutes before the shooting of President John F Kennedy in Dallas, who stated that he was going to be shot. Penn Jones Jr claimed in his book on the assassination that it was Karyn. Also, the fact that she was killed right after this.
The call did come from the vicinity of Oxnard, California, which was about fifty miles away from where Karyn lived.
Jones claimed that Kayrn was told this by her father, who was given the advance notice by Jack Ruby, whom her father may have met in Chicago in the 1940s. Ruby is the man who killed Lee Harvey Oswald the man accused of killing Kennedy.
Her murder was committed to apparently silenced her and sent a message to her father to remain silent about everything.
Her father, of course, denied this theory and was backed up by Karyn's boyfriend Andrew Prine and 2 friends that were with them. They were all in Palm Spring at the time of the assassination and Karyn was upset and shocked about television and radio coverage of the shootings. That her reaction was not one of prior knowledge.
The two operators who got the call were interviewed by the FBI and their description of the woman’s voice did not match Karyn’s. They stated it was someone older than her and they believed the woman on the phone was "mentally disturbed."
They checked out every weirdo with a record in the area just to see if anything panned out and nothing did. They also used a few psychics since Karyn’s mother believed in them and urged them to. A few of them said Andy did it, one said Lange and the rest were random unknown men. Her parents exhausted everything they could to try and get this case solved.
The LA County Coroner Harold Kade -Some police thought that the doctor broke the hyoid bone himself. Since he didn’t really find too much other than the hemorrhage inside her throat. Plus he had a reputation and also he apparently told a colleague. during another autopsy afterward “At least I didn’t break the Hyoid Bone on this one!” I googled him and found a lawsuit from July 1969 where they claim that the ”autopsy was performed with negligence and that as a result thereof the plaintiff was wrongfully charged with murder in the first degree” I will include the link in my references.
Some police thought that was she was on drugs she just tripped and fell on a chair breaking her bone and crawled to the couch to die
References
Karyn Kupcient's Wikipedia Page.
1969 Lawsuit against Dr. Harold Kade.
Kup: A Man, an Era, and A City- Irv Kupcient’s Autobiography
Crimewave- James Ellroy
Simmer Pasta Salad Recipe.
I have included pictures of the recipe card below that I got from my Misfit Market box.
I didn’t use Shallots, Capers, or mint leaves. I used Spiral Veggie Pasta and Roma Tomotos instead of the suggested. That’s what fun about receipes is that you can change them up to suit you.
I did follow the cooking ingredients
it’s light and delicious. I really enjoyed it and would make it again.
