Fetuses wrapped in 1930s newspapers found in trunk in old Los Angeles apartment basement

Fetuses found in CA basement trunk dating to ’30s

LOS ANGELES — Remains of two fetuses wrapped in 1930s newspapers and placed in doctor’s bags were found inside an unclaimed steamer trunk by women cleaning out the basement of a 1924 apartment building that’s being converted to condominiums, authorities and witnesses said.

The remains were discovered late Tuesday in a 4-foot-tall green trunk in a four-story brick building in the Westlake district, a once-elegant early 20th century neighborhood west of downtown.

The trunk was inscribed with the initials JMB and also contained a certificate giving “Miss Jean Barrie” membership to the Peter Pan Woodland Club mountain resort, a typing manual bearing the signature “Jean M. Barrie,” ticket stubs from the 1932 Los Angeles Olympic Games, photos of a wedding and other items.

Two women who found the remains called 911 and coroner’s officials began investigating, leaving residents to speculate about the trunk’s owner, the possibility of secret abortions in the era before the procedures were legal and an odd fact: Peter Pan was created by Scottish author James M. Barrie, who died in 1937.

“This building is a historic building. It has a lot of stories there and now it’s getting more interesting,” said six-year resident Yiming Xing, 35, a genetics researcher who was one of the discoverers.

Faced with a mystery three-quarters of a century old, however, no one could immediately say whether there was a connection between the unknown Jean M. Barrie and the fetuses, whether someone else might have hidden them in the trunk, and whether the Peter Pan connection was anything more than a coincidence.

“We’re trying to piece all of the parts of the puzzle together,” coroner’s Assistant Chief Ed Winter told news radio station KNX-AM. He described the remains as fetuses and said they were wrapped in newspapers dated 1933 and 1935, which differed slightly from the recollection of the women who found them.

The Peter Pan Woodland Club is long gone. The elaborate wooden clubhouse near Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains east of Los Angeles burned down in 1948.

Gloria Gomez, property manager of the building for 10 years, said the larger set of remains was in a Los Angeles Times newspaper dated 1932 and the smaller remains were in a paper from 1935. Xing believed one of the papers was from 1934.

It was Gomez’s job to clean out the basement. Everyone in the building was given until Aug. 14 to get their things out. The condo board told Gomez she could have anything that wasn’t claimed.

Tuesday night, Gomez and Xing checked two unclaimed trunks and they were empty. They tried several keys on the last one, but finally had to pry it open with a screwdriver. They found the drawers full and pulled out items including a pearl necklace, a girdle, a bowl, a toilet figurine, books, photos, documents and a cigar box painted with depictions of saints.

Then they found the two black leather doctor bags.

Xing opened the first soft bundle and found what looked like a piece of brown, dry, very old looking wood. She said she realized it might be human remains and they called 911.

When the coroner arrived, investigators unwrapped the second bundle to find the larger set of remains.

Xing said those remains “looked exactly like a baby” with a head and hair “and looked very developed.”

Both had been wrapped up like mummies but both were skeletons, Gomez said.

Another newspaper in the trunk was dated Sept. 17, 1937.

Coroner’s investigators took the remains, drawers, medical bags, photos, personal letters and postcards, Gomez said. They left the trunk, the book, the bowl, the cigar box with cigars inside, the typewriter manual, the ticket stubs and clothing.

Former building manager John Medford, 68, who has lived there for 22 years, said he also saw blank medical forms from a hospital that appeared to be for a nurse to track a patient’s temperature.

He was among those speculating that the fetuses were from abortions.

“In 1936, abortion was illegal,” he said, recounting the era of back-alley procedures. “Women were in desperate straits then.”

Diane Dudasik, the property manager and a building trustee, described the discovery as amazing but sad.

“But hopefully now the infants will be able to rest,” she said.

Police were awaiting results from the coroner’s office.

“We’ll try to reconstruct the circumstances based on what the coroner tells us, based on the history of the residence and based on science,” Chief Charlie Beck told the Los Angeles Times. “We have many more tools and technology available to us than before, which may allow for identification of the victims and closure to any family members.”

According to the property manager’s website, the Glen-Donald building has been used in a national DirecTV commercial, for the television show “Quarter Life” and a small, independent film project.

The 94-unit building, which has elaborate interior woodwork and a grand lobby, is being converted from individually owned apartments to a condominium arrangement.

Gomez said it was home to doctors, lawyers, writers and actors when it opened long ago.