CA CA - Los Angeles County, WhtFem 225UFCA 1 of 2 Children killed by dynamite, 1921-1951

AmandaBrown23

Im just living among all the madness
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This case is so weird and please remove it if it is already listed but I could not find it. 2 children a boy and girl were killed in Cali when dymaite exploded in their hands.



Unidentified White Female
  • Located between 1921 and 1951 in Los Angeles County, California.
  • Victim was a child.
  • Cause of death is an exploded dynamite.
Case History
Two children found sticks of dynamite near a dam in Los Angeles County, and began to play with them. The sticks exploded in their hands, killing them instantly.
There is no way possible to get a reconstruction of the male child due to the state of his body at the time of discovery.
There are no names or dates available, and this case is unsolved by the FBI.
The photographer who took these photos had a career in forensic photography between 1921 and 1951, so these deaths occured in that time frame.

http://doenetwork.org/cases/225ufca.html
 
Very strange case. No one reported missing their children? There was never a clue to why the dynamite was there- could it have been there for work being done to the dam in a certain year? I can't think of anything that would narrow down a time frame. Since there were photos, wasn't there any indication to how old the film was or what type of film was used? (I don't know if cameras/film had many changes from 21-51?) In the span of years, many things happened, including the Great Depression, WWII, etc...

This case is really tough, not very much to go on.
 
Could it have been Brenda Jo Howell & Donald Lee Baker?

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/2123dfca.html

They both disappeared while riding their bikes on Glendora Mtn. Road, which is near the San Gabriel Mtn. Dam & Reservoir. She was 12 yrs old, he was 15.

Their profiles state that Mack Ray Edwards admitted to killing them and 4 other children between 1953 and 1970. He was charged and convicted of killing 4 other children,, but he was never charged with these murders. Edwards worked in construction driving a bulldozer. Its possible the kids didn't die from playing w/ dynamite, but were killed by Edwards either using dynamite or disguised their murders with it.
 
From the TruCrime Library on Mack Ray Edwards, this excerpt:

"...several of the missing victims might have been thus erased, because Edwards had worked for the highway department and knew where new roads were going to be laid. It was a simple thing for him to dig a shallow grave the night before."

I'm assuming this may also have given him access to dynamite in working on cutting new roads through mountainous areas.
 
Placed a query on genforum for LA County-no replies.:waitasec:
Note-are they basing the time frame on the photographer career of 1921-1951? He could very well have acquired the pictures after he retired in 1951-thus possibly its a later case _i.e. message # 5 above. Has the film been identified as to when it was taken? Although picture is apparently genuine the providence is quite vague-once when I came across some vague references to pictures of 2 lynched murderers-i had a hard time finding out anything about the innocent victims they had killed-only by accident did I find out that one caption was wrongly dated a month later and another killing occurred in a different state then that of photographer/dealers!
 
Definitely an odd case. There's so little information; how are authorities even sure these children weren't identified? Were there any witnesses to the explosion or did someone find the bodies soon after?

Cannot view entire Feb. 20, 1924 LA Times article: "Children play with dynamite, one dies"

<modsnip: broken link>

Also, Charley Project page for Donald Lee Baker, not that it helps yet since there's so little information on the two UIDs:

 
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Hey, good to see people trying to solve this but I am wondering... how can anyone view a photo of a dead child, escpecially one blown up? Does anyone who has small children look at that post mortem, because I could not bring myself to click, it makes my stomache turn just thinking of the poor thing.
 
Hey, good to see people trying to solve this but I am wondering... how can anyone view a photo of a dead child, escpecially one blown up? Does anyone who has small children look at that post mortem, because I could not bring myself to click, it makes my stomache turn just thinking of the poor thing.

Nobody is forced to look at any post-mortem photos. So, I don't know what the problem is. For my part, I have no problem looking at them and I don't distinguish between post-mortem photos of adults and children. Perhaps that sounds hard and heartless, but I try not to be too much emotionally involved when dealing with UID and missing person cases.
I just thought it would be helpful to post this picture since we are trying to identify the girl.
 
Bump. This case is too strange. Has anyone inquired with the LA County Sheriffs office?
 
A really strange and intriguing case! Surely someone must have noticed these children were missing? I would assume they were from the area if they were playing there? So many questions....:waitasec:

JMHO
 
This is MOO but I have a feeling that many people "back in the day" didn't know what resources they had (LE included) when it came to missing people. I'm sure so many people didn't even do anything because they assumed there was nothing to be done. I'm sure these kids were noticed missing but between the helplessness and the fact that National news was pretty non-existent, sadly only the most high-profile cases are known to us to this day. Hopefully with the ever increasing volume of archived newspapers and news articles this will slowly start to change :)
 
One more thought on this case. Are we even sure that these kids were unidentified? From the scant info I've seen, all there is on these kids are pictures in a book of crime scene photographs. The dates are based upon the career time line of the photographer. As far as we know, these kids belonged to poor traveling workers in the 1930's who came to CA for WPA projects, and they were identified, but the records were lost, etc..... Just seems strange to me.
 
doc_j: This was my thought, too. Simply because they weren't ID'd in the crime scene photos doesn't necessarily mean they were never ID'd.

One more thought on this case. Are we even sure that these kids were unidentified? From the scant info I've seen, all there is on these kids are pictures in a book of crime scene photographs. The dates are based upon the career time line of the photographer. As far as we know, these kids belonged to poor traveling workers in the 1930's who came to CA for WPA projects, and they were identified, but the records were lost, etc..... Just seems strange to me.

I think that the first photo of Brenda Jo Howell and the PM photo of the young girl look the same to me.
 
doc_j: This was my thought, too. Simply because they weren't ID'd in the crime scene photos doesn't necessarily mean they were never ID'd.



I think that the first photo of Brenda Jo Howell and the PM photo of the young girl look the same to me.

I can see a slight resemblance, but I think the brow ridge/ eyebrows are shaped differently on the UID than on Brenda Jo Howell. Now, Howell and Baker were known to be missing from the get-go, and even if the authorities thought they had run away, wouldn't a boy and girl who had just been blown up by dynamite in the area have been looked into as a possible match? Also, blowing the bodies up with dynamite doesn't fit how Edwards was disposing of bodies. He may have had access to some dynamite, but it seems a little dramatic for a guy like him. IMHO, I think that these UID's are from the 1930's. There were an awful lot of dams being built then in S Cal, and people were coming from all over the country to make a living. My own grandfather moved from the South to S Cal to build concrete forms for the dams. Kids were probably living near the worksite, found some unsecured dynamite, and we know what happened after that. Poor kids.
 

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