Evelyn Kiernan Lewis Pettit Mumper Scott was unlucky at love, but could take solace in the fact that she had prospered nicely as a result. By the time she was 63, Evelyn had been twice divorced and twice widowed and was married to her fifth husband, Leonard Ewing Scott. She was also quite wealthy.
On May 16, 1955, Evelyn Scott dropped out of sight and was never heard from again. An investigation into her disappearance showed no signs of murderous violence in the Scott household or any other place she was known to frequent.
Other evidence suggested, however, that Ewing Scott murdered his wife for her money.
Just when Scott decided to kill Evelyn was never revealed, but after she vanished, it appeared that he had long had designs on her money and was taking steps to make it his own.
Soon after Ewing and Evelyn married in Las Vegas, he took control over her finances. In 1951, after a disagreement with an E.F. Hutton broker, Scott forced his wife to close her account there and liquidate her holdings. He told the broker and various acquaintances that he was a skilled investor and would handle things for his wife.
Scott claimed a horrible fear of atomic war as the reason that he wanted Evelyn to convert her holdings into more liquid investments, and on more than one occasion he told friends that the Scotts had cash deposited in safe deposit boxes around the country.
It turns out that his reason for preferring cash had a more criminal basis.
There is evidence that Scott physically intimidated his wife into acquiesing to his demands.
Shortly after the Scotts returned from their honeymoon, their cook heard the crash of some object in their bedroom. The next morning, she saw that Evelyn had a bruise on her cheek. Evelyn claimed she had tripped and fallen, but Scott told the cook, “Well, I just slapped the wind out of her.”
As is typical of abusers, Scott spied on his wife and asked that the cook help him. He insisted that the cook listen in on his wife’s phone calls, and when she refused, he terminated her.
In the months leading up to her disappearance, Scott hinted that Evelyn was quite ill.
“Mrs. Scott is in terrible shape,” one witness testified that Scott repeatedly said. “I had an awful time with her last night.”
However, on multiple occasions when friends questioned Evelyn about her health, she responded that she was fine. Evidence presented at Scott’s trial by her physicians bore this out.
Scott alleged that Evelyn was a heavy drinker and that her alcohol abuse was becoming more problematic. He told friends that eventually she would have to be hospitalized.
Once, when a friend called and asked to speak to her, Scott refused, saying Evelyn was “standing in the bedroom holding a bottle of whisky and cursing.”
On the afternoon of May 16, 1955, the Scotts test drove a new car and Scott told the salesman that the couple was considering living abroad, either in Spain or Portugal. Aside from Scott, Quast, the salesman was the last person to see Evelyn Scott alive.
Very likely, sometime that evening Evelyn Scott was killed by her husband, who proceeded to dispose of her body to the extent that it was never found.
Evelyn was fastidious about her appearance and had a standing appointment at a local beauty parlor. On May 17, Scott called the salon and cancelled his wife’s appointment for that date and for all subsequent appointments. Two days after that, he forged his wife’s signature on a card giving him access to her safe deposit boxes. At that time, the bank was reluctant to give him access, but he claimed she was ill and unable to appear at the bank. That same day, he opened several bank accounts around town, depositing large sums of cash — presumably from the safe deposit box he had just looted.
A week later, he called an insurance agent and cancelled the policies she kept on her jewelry.
Shortly after Evelyn’s disappearance, a housekeeper arrived to perform cleaning chores. She questioned where Evelyn was and Scott told her she had “become ill during the week and had gone away.” The housekeeper pointed out that Evelyn had left behind a favorite dressing gown. She also noted that none of Evelyn’s makeup or toiletries were missing.
During the summer of 1955, Scott gave the housekeeper several purses and handkerchiefs belonging to his wife. Once, as she was cleaning, the housekeeper came across a dress that was smaller than anything Evelyn could wear. She swore that it was not there in May.
On May 30, Scott terminated the employment of a part-time driver and handyman his wife used. He told the man that Evelyn had “gone east” because she was ill and that he was planning to close up the house and follow her.
“I’m discouraged with the way the doctors are making no headway with her diagnosis,” he told the handyman. “The only thing they have decided on is that she doesn’t have cancer. I’m afraid there is something wrong with her mentally.”
In mid-June on at least two separate occasions, Scott told close friends of Evelyn’s that she had been taken ill and that he was moving her to a sanitarium in Baltimore or New York City.
That summer other friends stopped by the Bel Air home but were unsuccessful in getting any information. Despite positive indications that someone was home, no one would answer the bell.
In July 1955, he started taking up with Harriet Livermore, whom he told a tale that Evelyn had abandoned him while he was out running an errand. He claimed that his wife was an alcoholic lesbian. When Harriet asked why he did not divorce his wife, he said he was waiting for seven years to pass so he could have her declared legally dead.
Scott’s relationship with Harriet Livermore stalled after he invited her to travel to Guatemala with him and she declined.
A month later, Scott met Marianne Beaman, who was a frequent overnight guest in the Bel Air home (according to court testimony). Marianne and Scott traveled around the Western United States. In November 1955, they went to Las Vegas, where they stayed as Mr. and Mrs. Scott. He gave Marianne several of Evelyn’s pieces of jewelry as well as luggage and furniture.
For the better part of a year, Scott continued to live in the Bel Air home, brushing off all attempts by Evelyn’s friends to gather more details about her fate. He refused to provide anyone with contact information and simply said that she was “not doing well” in the sanitarium.
Evelyn’s personal attorney and her brother, Raymond Throsby, both tried unsuccessfully to find where she had gone. In November 1955, Throsby, who had been living in the South Pacific, went to the Bel Air home and apparently surprised his brother-in-law.
“Scott turned white and told me ‘You’re the last person in the world I expected to see here,’” Throsby said later. He asked Scott where his sister was and Scott told him, “She is out. She is on a drunk.”
Responding to Throsby’s allegations that Scott had killed her, Scott denied the claim and said that Evelyn had disappeared and that they communicated with each other by leaving notes beneath a vase outside the house.
On March 5, 1956, Throsby reported his sister’s disappearance to police, who began investigating.
Three days later, detectives searched the Bel Air residence and discovered evidence that Evelyn was very likely dead. In the heavy brush behind the house, buried in several inches of dirt, they found Evelyn’s dentures and two pairs of eyeglasses. The eyeglasses and dentures were found in a pile of ashes.
In the incinerator, investigators found nearly two dozen hose fasteners “usually present on women’s garments,” some belt buckles and fabric. In the brush behind the house, police also found Evelyn’s black porcelin cigarette holder.
Her dentist and her opthamologist both told police that it was unlikely that Evelyn would have gone anywhere without her dentures or her glasses. The dentures were necessary to hold her natural teeth in place and she was apparently quite blind without the glasses.
In an interview with police, Scott said his wife had abandoned him while he went out to run an errand and that he had found her car abandoned on a nearby street. There was no evidence in the car of foul play, but Scott admitted to having spent considerable time cleaning it up after he found it. He said birds had soiled the car.
Scott was arrested for forgery and fraud for looting his wife’s bank accounts after police visited her safe deposit boxes and found only envelopes filled with sand.
A little more than a year after Evelyn disappeared, Scott was indicted for forgery and theft. He posted bail and immediately fled to Canada, where he remained on the lam until April 9, 1957. Scott was arrested in Detroit as he attempted to cross back into the United States.
He was put on trial and the jury convicted him of murder, citing a mountain of circumstantial evidence. Using the argument that the State of California had failed to establish the corpus delicti, Scott appealed his conviction. In December 1959 the appeals court upheld his conviction and life sentence.