It's probably no accident that films and sensational celebrity murders have long been two of Los Angeles' most successful exports.
The two genres' successful examples, after all, often combine similar elements: sex, money, attractive protagonists, colorful supporting players and complex subplots. Good locations help, too: Americans relish the satisfying intimation that behind their affluent neighbors' polished doors lurks unhappiness dark and deep.
At mid-century, for example, Angelenos and readers of the national press were mesmerized by the gory, sex-drenched events that transpired on one of the tree-lined streets in the gracious Mid-City neighborhood of Hancock Park.
The year was 1948. As Hancock Park's resolutely white residents frantically circulated petitions to prevent a black entertainer named Nat "King" Cole from taking possession of the home he had purchased in their midst, the rest of the city's attention was focused on one of their Lucerne Boulevard neighbors, Betty Ferreri, who was accused of using a meat cleaver to dispatch her unfaithful husband, who had inconsiderately survived the two shots the family's possibly deranged handyman had pumped into him moments before.
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