Thelma Todd Death Site - Pacific Palisades

Thelma Todd's death site is located on Posetano Road in Pacific Palisades, California.  It was here in this garage that the asphyxiated body of the actress was found on December 16, 1935.  The garage is the bottom level of a three tiered house called Castillo Del Mar, built into the hillside between Posetano Road at the bottom and rising up to Revello Drive at the top.  The house was built by director Roland West and was his home with Jewel Carmen, his actress wife, until they separated in early 1934.  Around that time West moved down the hillside to his apartment, in what would come to be known as Thelma Todd's Sidewalk Cafe, which sits along Pacific Coast Highway.  West and Todd first met in 1931 when he directed her in the film Corsair.  From that point forward they formed a relationship which neither ever fully explained to the public.  Whatever their romantic partnership amounted to is unknown, but as far as their business relationship went, West owned the cafe and Todd lent her name to it.  By December 1935 she had moved into the cafe apartment as well.  Castillo Del Mar at that time was occupied by cafe manager Rudolf Schafer and his wife, the sister of Jewel Carmen.  The apartment over the garage was occupied by Charles Smith, the cafe accountant.  On the night of Saturday December 14, Todd went to a party at the Trocadero and was dropped off at the cafe by her chauffer around 3:30 in the morning on December 15.  Finding that West had locked her out, as he warned her he would do if she stayed out too late, she made the trek up the hillside to Castillo Del Mar and was not seen alive again.  On Monday morning, December 16, her maid, Mae Whitehead, found her in the garage.  Her brown Lincoln phaeton was backed into the right hand stall and she was slumped in the driver's seat.  The police investigated and accepted West's explanation, that she had gone up to the garage to wait until someone came down to open the cafe.  During the night she got cold and started the car for warmth.  Shortly after she was dead from asphyxiation.  The case was deemed an accident by the police, but the media wouldn't let the story die that quickly, and soon theories were abounding of suicide and murder.  No real evidence ever made itself known to corroborate either more lurid story, and even though an accident seems the most logical conclusion, the more sordid tales still guide public awareness of the case.   

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