Author Reports Husband’s Confession in ’55 Murder of Socialite

L. Ewing Scott, after three decades of denying that he killed his socialite wife and after spending 21 years behind bars for her murder, reportedly has confessed the crime to a Los Angeles writer.

Now 90 and bedridden in a Silverlake area convalescent home, the central figure in what was one of Los Angeles’ more sensational cases of the 1950s is quoted in a new book as saying he bludgeoned Evelyn Throsby Scott, 63, to death in the couple’s Bel-Air home.

He reportedly said he then drove the body to the Las Vegas area and buried it in the desert.

Her body was never found.

Disappeared in 1955

Evelyn Throsby Scott disappeared the evening of May 16, 1955, after taking a test ride in a Mercedes-Benz with her husband, a handsome and charming ne’er-do-well paint salesman who had married her five years earlier.

Scott claimed his wife had gone out for tooth powder and never come back. Friends suspected foul play. Her brother sued Scott, prompting a massive Los Angeles police hunt for Mrs. Scott.

Eleven months after the disappearance, a grand jury indicted Scott on grand theft and forgery charges in connection with liquidating her nearly $1 million in assets.

Scott fled, only to be arrested nearly a year later on a murder charge when he tried to enter Canada from Detroit. Extradited to Los Angeles for trial, Scott insisted that he had done nothing wrong and protested that without a body the prosecution had no case.

There were rumors that Scott had dumped his wife’s body under the San Diego Freeway, then under construction.

Sentenced to Life in Prison

Convicted and sentenced to life in prison, Scott spent 18 years in San Quentin, protesting his innocence at every turn and rejecting offers of parole. He became a skilled jail house lawyer.

In 1978, when he was 81 years old and too ill for prison life, the state released him, saying he had served his time. His freedom brought a new flood of reporters and to each he steadfastly maintained his innocence.

Then he met Diane Wagner, a Los Angeles journalist who was writing a book about the unusual case. After repeatedly denying his guilt, he telephoned her one day from his run-down Mid-Wilshire apartment and said, “I have a story to tell you. I think this is something you are going to want to hear”

Wagner came. Scott confessed.