Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

Because it’s been far too long since I’ve shared a Mystery Blood story, here’s this doozy from the “Los Angeles Times,” November 8, 1930:

LA HABRA, Nov. 7. The residence of V.J. Trueblood on Telegraph Road, near La Habra, today offered investigating officers the elements of an unsolved mystery, and the Trueblood family that eerie feeling of having met the inscrutable.

The family returned to its home yesterday after an absence of a day and a night to find that the home had been entered and that some sort of an animal conflict had taken place within the house. A door had been unlocked and on the walls of a bedroom were splotches of blood. A bed also bore blood stains, indicating, the family believes, that uninvited guests may have engaged there in a death struggle.

The small dog of the Truebloods also was found to be covered with blood stains, but bore no other evidences that might indicate participation in a bloody struggle.

Tests were being made today to determine, if possible, whether the blood is that of a human being, or of some animal that might have found its way into the house.

A story in the November 21 issue of the “Santa Ana Register” really makes me wonder what the hell was going on here:

LA HABRA, Nov. 21.—Some of the mystery concerning a blood splatter was cleared up yesterday when blood on the bedding and linens of the room was found to be that of an animal, presumably that small family dog at the V.J. Trueblood home on Telegraph road.

Mrs. Trueblood, who was sewing in an upper room, heard a gunshot near her home. She also heard her dog barking violently and later heard the door open. Later when her husband arrived and the blood splattered room was discovered, the constable’s office was notified.

How the dog entered the room, how a blood soaked bandage from the room was found near the road some distance from the house, what happened to a turkey hen, missing from her brood and who fired the shot at the dog, are mysteries unsolved.

I found no more about these sanguinary doings, which may be just as well.

And, yes, I note the irony of the family name.