The Bad Butcher Boy Of Hollywood

True Crime Historian

Richard O Jones

True Crime, Performing Arts, Documentary, Arts, Society & Culture

4.5 • 720 Ratings

🗓️ 30 June 2025

⏱️ 101 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Murder Of Myrtle Mellus

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Episode 350 relates the tale of a love triangle ending in tragedy when a Hollywood socialite is found murdered after one of her regular trysts with her young lover. There’s a lot of drinking and debauchery involved in this, and we never really get all the details of this sordid liaison, but just enough to spark the imagination.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	A gray-haired mother waited in vain yesterday afternoon and a modest home for her favorite son and her sole support to come for a surprise dinner.
0:18.4	Kelly's mother stated that her boy had promised her that he would return by four o'clock.
0:24.4	She prepared dinner, she said, and had a surprise, but he failed to come home for it.
0:31.4	She waited in vain, and last night she was informed that her son is being held by police and is suspected of murder.
0:40.3	The mother is Mrs. Josephine Kelly, 8.11 South Union Street, and her son, Leo Pat Kelly,
0:49.3	was found hiding in a closet in the home of Mrs. Myrtle L. Melis, 8.11 South Rimpow Boulevard,
0:57.1	after the latter's husband returned home to find his wife's mutilated body.
1:03.7	Receiving the news of her son's arrest with stoicism, the mother exercised remarkable self-control
1:10.5	while praising her son and declaring that extenuating
1:14.6	circumstances must have led into his predicament.
1:17.6	Quote, Pat was a dutiful son and always has been everything that one should be to his mother, unquote.
1:26.6	That an acquaintance had existed between Pat Kelly and Mrs. Mellis was known to the former's
1:33.3	mother for some time. Mrs. Kelly is the widow of W.E. Kelly, who was killed by a man he sought
1:40.3	to arrest in Ventura County while acting in his capacity as a constable.
1:47.5	Seven years ago this month, Deputy Sheriff William E. Kelly of Ventura County died in a room
1:55.6	at Central Police Station from a bullet wound received in a gunfight with a hunted murderer.
2:01.6	Last night, his son, Leo Kelly, was in a cell not more than 100 feet from that room, charged with murder.
2:11.6	On August 20, 1921, Deputy Sheriff Kelly and Sheriff McMarton of Ventura County arrived at Van
2:20.3	Eyes in search of a Mexican wanted for murder at Oxnard. As they approached the Bean
2:26.1	Warehouse at Van Nuys where the man was reported hiding, he opened fire. Kelly fell, fatally wounded.
2:38.6	Deputy Sheriff Spike Moody and Officer Murray, now on robbery detail at Central, rushed to the scene and killed the Mexican. Kelly died a few hours later at Central.
2:47.6	Patrolman Kelly of Hollywood said last night, I can't believe my brother is guilty of this crime.
	...

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