Dorothy “Dot” King was a 28-year-old Jazz Age party girl with a nominal career as an artist’s model-slash-actress (hence her Broadway nickname) and lots of gentlemen callers.
When her maid found her lifeless body one morning in March 1923—she’d been chloroformed to death in her West 57th Street apartment—all of New York tried to figure out who killed her.
According to reports, thousands of dollars in jewelry was missing from her apartment—perhaps she’d been the victim of a burglary.
Was it an overdose? Chloroform was a party drug in the 1920s, so investigators thought she may have offed herself, intentionally or not.
Dot also had ties to a wealthy older benefactor she had dinner with at the Hotel Brevoort the night she died. He claimed they were just friends.
Police ended up arresting her con man boyfriend, Albert Guimares, but he had an alibi. Other possible killers included an ex-husband and her tough laundress mother.
In the end, no one was ever tried. Three movies based on her case later, Dot’s murder remains unsolved.
Tags: Albert Guimares, Broadway Butterfly, Dorothy King murder, Dot King murder, Hotel Brevoort, Jazz Age New York City, murder by chloroform, New York in the 1920s, showgirls of New York City, unsolved NYPD murders
June 23, 2010 at 6:10 pm |
What were the 3 movies based on her case?
June 23, 2010 at 6:47 pm |
A 1929 film The Canary Murder Case, 1934′s Upperworld, and the 1940s noir Naked City all feature murders similar to Dot King’s.