Shortly before 10 on Memorial Day morning, 1933, Palo Alto real estate agent Julia Place arrived unannounced at a bungalow along Stanford's Faculty Row. With her was a San Francisco couple looking for a summer rental.
Place knocked on the front door at 622 Salvatierra Street, home of David and Allene Lamson and their 2-year-old daughter, nicknamed "Bebe." David, '25, was a former Chaparral editor working as advertising manager at Stanford University Press. Allene, '26, MA '28, had edited the women's section of the Daily and the Quad as an undergraduate and, after a stint as assistant editor at the Stanford Illustrated Review, worked as executive secretary of the campus YWCA. Married at Memorial Church in 1928, the Lamsons were a popular couple who enjoyed socializing with the literary set on campus.
Getting no response at the front door, Place strolled to the backyard, where she found David, shirtless and hoe-in-hand, chatting casually with a neighbor while presiding over a bonfire of leaves and yard waste. David shouted a greeting to the realtor and asked her to meet him at the front door while he went inside to alert his wife. Moments later, standing on the front steps, Place heard David shriek, "Oh my God, my wife's been murdered!" What happened next would shatter Stanford's suburban tranquility -- and unleash a storm of national publicity lasting more than three years.
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