Further reading for The Los Feliz Murder Mansion/ Agness Underwood
Hollywood Obscura: Death, Murder, and the Paranormal Aftermath
The First with the Latest!: Aggie Underwood, the Los Angeles Herald, and the Sordid Crimes of a City
In 1950s Los Angeles, the Northern city of Los Feliz was filled with impressive high class family homes bring the best and most upscale buyers that the times had to offer. Dr Harold Perelson, a prominent heart surgeon was one of these people. The house he bought himself and wife and their three children was located in the most well to do area of Los Feliz the mansion had tons of space for them to expand and make their mark on the area.
On December 6, 1959, just a few years after moving into the home the family and their house were about to go down in history. In the early morning hours, eldest daughter 18 year old Judy is woken up with a throbbing headache, and her father standing over her holding a ball-peen hammer. She screams and struggles with her father, finally able to break free she is able to stagger down the stairs and to a neighbors home for help.
The two younger children, 13 year old Joel and 11 year old Debbie, are woken up by Judy’s screams. When Harold sees his youngest children awake, he tells them to go back to bed, luckily they do not listen and run out of the house unharmed.
When Police finally get to the scene and search the mansion, they find find the body of Harold’s wife, Lillian Perelson in her bed, covered in blood. It is found that she had been bludgeoned to death in her bed while she slept, and assumed Harold did it with the ball peen hammer. Harold’s body is found on a bed, it is determined that he has killed himself by drinking a full glass of acid in order to poison himself.
It is believed that Dr Perelson turned on his family due to mounting stress of financial pressure and lack of control. The children quickly moved out of state to live with family members and the mansion was shuttered as is like a time capsule. The house was sold and bought by a local couple, who instead of moving in, used the residence as a storage site.
The house stood without people living in it, or being disturbed for decades, repairs were rarely made and the lawn turned brown, weeds taking over the gardens, the driveway cracking and deteriorating. The neighbors eventually would take it upon themselves to try to keep up the outside of the mansion, cleaning the front yard and painting the garage but then inside still contained the belongings of the Perelson’s inside.
An old timey female reporter
Agness Unerwood was an American journalist and newspaper editor and one of the first women in the US to hold a city editorship on a major daily newspaper. She worked as a reporter onthe LA Record from 1928-1935 the Herald-Express from 1935-1962 and the Herald-Examiner from 1962-1968
Episode 120
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