The Overell Murders – A Two-Part Tale of Innocence or Guilt

La Cañada Flintridge was the source of a horrible murder in 1947, which went on to become the trial of the century. As such, it was finally eclipsed by the O.J. Simpson trial, which had many similarities. The crime involved a young heiress to her parents’ fortune, the wealthy Overell family. She and her boyfriend were accused of killing her parents. The evidence was all there to convict them. Just like the O.J. trial, it seemed an open-and-shut case. In this first installment I’ll present the damning evidence of their guilt.

Walter Overell was the wealthiest man in Flintridge in the 1930s and ’40s. In his hilltop mansion he and his wife raised their only child, a girl named Beulah. She was obviously spoiled … but she was more than that. She was thought of as just plain weird by locals and there are even stories of the Overells paying people to bring their kids to her birthday parties.

When she was 17 she decided she wanted a boyfriend. It was just after the war and there were lots of eligible veterans available. She hooked up with a 19-year-old vet named Bud Gollum for a torrid love affair. Beulah was not attractive but she was rich and apparently that was good enough for Gollum. The two talked about marriage. 

Walter Overell and his wife were horrified. They hated Bud Gollum. They forbade the relationship and if she stayed with him even threatened to revise their will to cut out Beulah as the heir to their huge fortune.

In March 1947, Bud and Beulah drove to Chatsworth and bought several sticks of dynamite, easily purchased in those days for removing tree stumps. The next night, Bud and Beulah went down to Newport Harbor to pay a visit to the Overells on their 47-foot yacht. After a short visit, Bud and Beulah left the yacht. Moments later, a huge blast erupted on the boat where the Overells were, tearing apart the bodies of the couple and blasting holes in the boat, which immediately sank.

On the wreckage of the boat, police investigators found electrical tape, wires, a clock and other evidence of a home-made bomb. They also found 31 sticks of unexploded dynamite. It was surmised that the bomb maker was an amateur and didn’t understand that each stick needed its own blasting cap to go off. If the entire bundle of dynamite had gone off the boat and the bodies would have been completely destroyed.

Autopsies on the Overells’ bodies showed blunt force trauma to their heads. Mrs. Overell’s wounds matched a ball-peen hammer found on board the wreckage of the boat and Mr. Overell’s wounds matched one of the boat’s removable stanchions. As well there was no water in their lungs, indicating they were dead before the boat sank.

When Bud and Beulah went to pick up her parent’s car the next day, they were arrested. In Bud’s car trunk was more dynamite, the receipt for the dynamite, the same electrical tape used in the bomb and a small screw of the same type that was in the clock used in the bomb. 

The Overells maid told the newspapers that on the night of the explosion, Bud and Beulah came back to the house and made love on the bed of the parent’. After they were arrested, they wrote lurid, sexually-charged love notes to each other in jail. The letters were passed back and forth by a guard who was also feeding the letters to a newspaper. The letters talked of suicide, murder and plans for a jail break. (Not sure why they weren’t out on bail. Maybe considered a flight risk?)

So Bud and Beulah had a strong motive. Beulah stood to inherit the equivalent of $15 million in today’s dollars. They were in possession of the murder weapons. It was an open-and-shut case. Everything pointed to their guilt. But just like the O.J. Simpson case, lawyers counted for everything in a trial of this magnitude. 

In two weeks, I’ll give you Part 2: what happened at the trial.