i think he killed himself
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Allen_705 — 19 years ago(February 11, 2007 04:23 AM)
The second gun casing could be from him test firing the gun, often suicide victims test fire their gun to make sure it will do the job.
http://www.myspace.com/thetexanhasspoke
I aim to misbehave! -
JimB-4 — 19 years ago(February 20, 2007 09:42 PM)
There were NOT two bullet casings found in the room. There were two bullet holes found (later) in the floor which have been explained (though not to everyone's satisfaction). (The subsequent posters remark about "practice shots" is quite accurate, as well, and may account for the extra holes.) The death bullet was found in an angled section of the ceiling slightly above where Reeves head would have been had he been sitting on the bed.
There is no such thing as "gunpowder burns" on the hands of a shooter. Sometimes gunshot RESIDUE (unburnt powder) shows up on shooters' hands, but nowadays very little credence is given to the results of testing for that, due to the fact that many other substances (such as cigarette ash, certain soaps, urine, etc.) give the exact same positive results. And in 1959, the LAPD did NOT test for gunshot residue, because departmental policy stated that it was too unreliable. Therefore no one knows if there was residue on Reeves's hand or not, and thus no conclusion can be drawn from its absence or presence.
Jim Beaver -
JimB-4 — 19 years ago(February 24, 2007 05:18 PM)
I would never tell anyone I'm a terrific person.
I would also never tell anyone 7ecthat I'm right and they're wrong about this case. I will say, however, that if you are going to dispute my findings, PLEASE find a better source for your own decision than HOLLYWOOD KRYPTONITE. I gave the authors of that book masses of information under the impression they gave me that they were writing a book on the sociology of hero worship as exemplified by George Reeves fans. I gave them so much information that they dedicated their book to me (along with two or three other people who'd done the same for them). Then they published a book which twisted almost everything any of us had given them, filled in the gaps with "interviews" with people whom no one involved in the case or its investigation had ever heard of or who were dead long before these authors began their project, and created a bizarre scenario of a mob hit where no real evidence exists. Reeves's friend Jack Larson called the book HOLLYWOOD KRAPTONITE. I and the others who had contributed much of the truthful information in the book were so incensed at how our research had been twisted, we spoke out publicly, which resulted in all of us being removed from the book's dedication in the paperback release. (We were all devastated at this.
)
There is plenty of room for reasonable people to disagree on this case. I began my research nearly thirty years ago convinced Reeves had been murdered. My research findings will no longer allow me to believe that's true. Others may disagree. But don't trust HOLLYWOOD KRYPTONITE for your information. It is, as Shakespeare said, a tale told by well, by people "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
There's plenty of truthful material to look into. Don't be misled by lies.
Jim Beaver -
JimB-4 — 19 years ago(February 24, 2007 11:01 PM)
Depending on the study, anywhere from half to 65% of all suicides in the U.S. result in claims by family members that the deceased "could not" have committed suicide and therefore must have been murdered or the victim of an accidental death. So, yes, I believe that Mrs. Bessolo, who was not only estranged from her son but a mentally unstable woman even prior to her son's death, was wrong about her son's death. But then I've been at this story from every possible angle I can find for most of my adult life. I've got the weight of mountains of evidence pushing me toward my conclusions. With all due respect, how many eye-witnesses to his death have YOU talked to? And how many eye-witnesses to his prior suicide attempts have you talked to? I've talked to several. It doesn't mean I'm right, but, again, it puts a great deal of weight on my conclusions. I started out, as I say, believing and WANTING to believe Reeves was murdered. There's just too much actual evidence, forensic, psychological, and personal, forcing me away from that belief now.
When my book is completed, all the evidence will be laid out as clearly as I can do it both for AND against the suicide theory.
Jim Beaver -
JimB-4 — 19 years ago(February 26, 2007 11:39 PM)
Well, "Scorp," you caught me. Boy, oh, boy, red-handed, too, just like you were when you burned your hand. I'm terribly sorry to have been imprecise. (You can call it erroneous if you like.)
Yes, people have burned their hands when firing a gun, as you point out. Had I been precise enough to avoid successfully any nitpicking, I would have said that evidentiary testing of a possible shooter's hands is for residue of gunpowder, not for burns, as your remark about Reeves's hands not being tested for "gunpowder burns." Gunshot-residue testing (GSR) is to pick up remnants of unburned powder on the skin, not to search for actual "gunpowder burns." I was imprecise in pointing out your erroneous terminology.
I was perhaps just as imprecise in using the term "eye-witnesses" to describe the people who were in Reeves's house the night of his death (despite the fact that the LAPD incident report also calls them "eye-witnesses." If I can manage to get past your eagerness to find fault in any phrase I use less than 100% precisely, I will state that I have interviewed, over the course of my years on this project, several of the people who were in the house at the time of the shooting, as well as several who had been there earlier, and several who were there immediately after. As the police report referred to these people as "eye-witnesses" and "witnesses," I allowed myself to do so as well. Since it is my conviction that no one was in the room with Reeves at the moment of the shooting, no, I have not interviewed any eye-witnesses to the gunshot itself. There were none, beyond the decedent.
Your statement that George Reeves went upstairs and fired two shots (the second one of which was fatal) is at odds with the evidence, or at least the evidence as I understand it. I believe only one shot was fired that night. I'm certain you realize that is my position, but I did not want my failure to mention it to suggest that I either agreed with it or overlooked the remark.
I appreciate your own law-enforcement background. But so you know, I'd like to make clear that most of the forensic evidence interpretation on which I have come to my conclusions was provided by law-enforcement personnel, most of it independent of the LAPD. I respect your insight, but must give greater weight to the insight of LEOs who have studied the case, in depth, at my request.
Jim Beaver (who has known since second grade that he has a funny name) -
JimB-4 — 19 years ago(February 28, 2007 06:23 PM)
Thank you for your response. And hear! hear! to your final comment in it. The truth is the only thing that matters.
The extra bullet holes (there were two, besides the death bullet) but only one gunshot heard that night is an easily explainable circumstance. The first two bullets were not fired that night. They were, according to the person who claims to have fired them, fired a week or so earlier.
Jim Beaver -
aikenidol24 — 19 years ago(March 04, 2007 09:53 AM)
Scorpio7:
"The fact is, this case remains UNSOLVED, simply because modern-day forensics didn't exist almost 50 years ago (when George Reeves was killed), and probably cannot be utilized, at such a late date."
Did you see the Forensic Files episode where they went back in time to look at the Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping? If forensics can go back and look at evidence from the '20's, why can't they look at evidence from the 50's?
I'm not a forensic expert, nor do I claim to be one, but I don't see where this case can't be solved in some way. What about bullet trajectory into the skull? Was it at the right angle for suicide? (Yes, I know, horrors of horrors, Mr. Reeves might have to be dug upeek!)
My other main question is to Mr. Beaver: as an expert, don't you have better things to do than spend time disputing things on a message board? The fact that you spend a lot of time on here seems to me that you might not be who you clai5b4m to be. No offense. -
JimB-4 — 19 years ago(March 04, 2007 01:00 PM)
Bullet trajectory into the skull was perfectly angled for suicide temple to temple, with a very slightly higher exit wound maybe five degrees off horizontal, if that. Also, skull beveling and skin laceration is completely consistent with a contact wound.
Couldn't dig Reeves up, though. He was cremated by his mother after the third (private) autopsy revealed no evidence of foul play.
And you're right I've got lots of better things to do. I'll leave it to content, context, and the opinion of others whether I am who I say I am. But it's a weakness of mine that I get involved in these online debates and discussions, which do indeed take up time I could be finishing my damn book.
Jim -
JimB-4 — 18 years ago(June 04, 2007 12:45 AM)
Several of his friends whom I interviewed told me about two prior suicide attempts.
I don't think wrestling was his only job option. But he had almost none that didn't involve Superman.
Yes, I am nearly certain he took his own life.
Jim -
kathleen28262 — 18 years ago(September 28, 2007 08:29 AM)
When oh when will Mr. Beaver's book be out? I'm so anxious to read it.
The recent movie has awakened interest in a man who from what I have read seems to have been a decent human being and was certainly a charismatic individual it is natural for we who admired him to hope that he did not take his own life, indeed that he was not so unhappy or desperate that he would want to do so and of course also the tragedy that whether by his own hand or not such a young man who had so much going for him would lose his life.
Hope to see something soon about the book. -
JimB-4 — 18 years ago(September 28, 2007 09:08 AM)
No fingerprints were found on the gun because the gun had a thick coat of oil which wouldn't hold fingerprints. (And the homicide cop who nailed Son of Sam, told me that in thirty years investigating homicides, he'd never once found fingerprints on a gun.)
There were no powder burns on the head wound because in a contact wound, the powder is forced into the wound track and not onto the skin surrounding the wound. As another veteran homicide cop said, "I start thinking murder when I DO find powder burns on a supposed suicide's head."
The spent shell was found beneath the body because in most cases of gunshot-to-the head, the shooter takes the most natural position holding the gun so that it is almost upside-down. (Try it with your hand. It's a much more natural position than with the gun perfectly right-side-up.) Such a position would eject the shell from a Luger behind the victim. It's no great leap to imagine the body then falling atop the shell.
The gun was found between his feet because he was sitting on the edge of the bed when he fired the shot. The gun dropped straight down onto the floor between his feet and his body fell back onto the bed. That's how he was found lying on his bed with his feet on the floor. Homicide police have told me repeatedly that, due to reflex action, the location of the gun is rarely meaningful. One cop told me he'd found a suicide in a locked room, no windows, body in a chair, and gun stuck in the light fixture overhead.
The Paramount deal is false. It never happened.
Some of his friends said he was happier than he'd been in years. I've talked to many who said he was as depressed as they'd ever seen him. Who are you going to believe? One of his closest friends, an actor on the Superman show, told me it didn't surprise him one bit that Reeves killed himself.
The people in the house delayed calling the police because they were EXTREMELY drunk. One of them finally called her lawyer and said, "Oh my God, George shot himself! What do I do?" The lawyer said, "Hang up and call the police, stupid!" Also, the delay loses all its "sinister" aspects when you realize that they TOLD the police they'd delayed calling!