Get it here! SAVE MONEY |
|||||||
RAT PACK GOLDDIGGERS | |||||||
by LA Scandals - -- - PART TWO |
Death of Alfalfa - Murder? |
"A
year ago, Switzer suffered a flesh wound in a shooting by an unknown
assailant in front of ('The Wolf's Den' in Studio City) a bar in the
San Fernando Valley. Later, in 1958, he attempted suicide." Was this evidence that someone wanted Carl Switzer dead?
DID YOU KNOW: Carl Switzer (Alfalfa) had a brush with the law a few months before his death - he was convicted of stealing trees from the Sequoia National Forest and selling them for Christmas trees. He was given a suspended thirty day sentence, fined $225 and put on probation for a year.
Access
our
|
This
is the story (from the killer Carl
"Alfalfa" Switzer, 31, the freckled faced child actor in the old
"Our Gang" movies was shot and killed last night in a battle over
a $50 debt. "Let
me in," Stiltz said Switzer demanded, "or I'll kick in the door."
Stiltz
opened the door to Switzer and Piott.
"I
want the fifty bucks you owe me, and I mean now." Switzer said to
Stiltz, his former partner in a bear hunting scheme in which Switzer
worked as a guide - one of the varied jobs at which he worked during
recent years.
The
two men got into a violent argument over the debt involving a reward
for finding Stiltz's missing dog, then began fighting.
During
the fight, Switzer grabbed a glass-domed clock from a dresser in
a bedroom and smashed it on Stiltz's head, Stiltz said.
Stiltz,
who was bloodied and had a blackened left eye and a bandage over
his right eye, grabbed a gun from a dresser drawer and Switzer made
a lunge for it.
They
wrestled in the living room and the gun went of, the bullet smacking
into the ceiling without hitting anyone.
Mrs.
Corrigan and her three children, a boy 14, and two girls aged 12
and 13, who had been in the house during the fight, fled to a neighbor's
home to call police.
Switzer,
according to Shiltz, got possesion of the gun briefly, but Shiltz
got it back.
Switzer
drew a knife and screamed, "I'm going to kill you, you -- (*insert
expletive here)", Stiltz said.
"I
took the gun away from Alfalfa and he threw the knife at me," Shiltz
said. "That's when I shot him."
A
knife was found beside the body on the living room floor of the
ranch-style home. That's what the killer had to say, but what did the other witnesses to the altercation say that night? Remember, Switzer arrived at the home with a friend, (studio still photographer) Jack Piott. Piott stated in the papers on January 23rd that the two went over to Shiltz' home to collect a debt, but that Carl Switzer was unarmed at the time. Carl had no knife with him, according to Piott. Odd, because Stiltz told a strange story about that knife - one that stretches credibility (but covered his ass more completely) when he testified before the Coroner's Jury on January 26. Stiltz stated that: "Alfie charged me with a jacknife. I was forced to shoot, and he closed the knife as he fell to the floor." A convenient explanation as to why the knife was found under Switzer's body - with no blade exposed. Was it placed there to support a self-defense plea? (A closed knife is no threat to a man with a gun.) Regardless, the coroner's jury ruled the death was 'justifiable homocide'. Was Carl's death really the result of that struggle or just cold blooded murder? Did the police do a thorough investigation? LAscandals brings
up these points: The true story about anything concerning almost any star would be difficult to ascertain in those days. The LAPD was notoriously corrupt in the Fifties - more than willing to bow to pressure from the city's biggest employer, the entertainment industry. LAScandals also points out that Interstate television Distribution was making millions on the syndication rights to the 'Little Rascals' - a 'Dope Burn' headline would have seriously degraded that property's value in those early days of television. No question that's true - but is there any other evidence that this was a drug burn? Then, in 2000, a new
witness came forth to clear up the facts in the case - Tom Corrigan, Bud
Switzer's stepson, was there in the living room and decided to open up
about what he saw that night.
PART
THREE:
|
|
|