We dare Marcia or Johnnie to object:...

We dare Marcia or Johnnie to object: Loyola University law Prof. Laurie Levenson, inspired by recent DNA testimony, introduced a certain Superior Court judge this way at a panel discussion:

“The man who’s one in 9.7 billion. . . .

“Lance Ito!”

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Murder, they rewrote: Sensational cases involving mysterious deaths never fade away in L.A. They just keep being re-investigated. Some recent literature:

* “Cast of Killers,” by Sidney Kirkpatrick, drawing on research by director King Vidor, looks into the unsolved 1922 murder of director William Desmond Taylor. He was gunned down in his fashionable residence near the corner of 4th and Alvarado. Kirkpatrick and Vidor concluded that the murderer was the mother of silent screen star (and Taylor companion) Mary Miles Minter.

* “Hot Toddy,” by Andy Edmonds, delves into the 1935 death of actress Thelma Todd and disputes the verdict that it was “accidental.” Edmonds believes that Todd, whose body was found inside her parked car, was the victim of a mob hit. It was ordered, she says, by Lucky Luciano, who was trying to gain control of the actress’s restaurant, Thelma Todd’s Sidewalk Cafe, on Pacific Coast Highway.

* “The Trunk Murderess: Winnie Ruth Judd,” by Jana Bommersbach, contends that Judd was framed for the 1931 double murder of two women, whose bodies she brought in her luggage to an L.A. railroad station.

* “Deadly Illusions,” by Samuel Marx and Joyce Vanderveen, deals with the 1932 death of director Paul Bern, the husband of Jean Harlow. It was declared a suicide, but the authors claim that the studio covered up the fact that he was murdered by an ex-lover, who may have been his legal wife.

Marx and Vanderveen also touch on suspicions about the verdict of suicide in the 1959 death of actor George Reeves, TV’s “Superman.” KCBS’ Brad Goode, in a series on Hollywood mysteries, recently aired interviews with Reeves’ colleagues, who say they have evidence about the identity of the real murderer.

Reeves, by the way, died from a gunshot to the head. Not, as myth has it, from a leap.

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Numbers game: But let’s get back to Winnie Ruth Judd’s arrival at the railroad station with a trunk full of human bodies. It was a sensational story at the time. And a frustrating one for newspaper reporters, who then wrote for multiple daily editions.

An Examiner reporter named Warden Woolard called Bill White, a police investigator, for details on the first day.

“Bill, how many bodies are in that trunk?” Woolard asked.

White told Woolard he didn’t know, that it was a “hell of a mess,” and to phone back in a while.

Twice Woolard called, only to be told the police had no number. Finally, he shouted into the phone:

“Good God, Bill, can’t you count the heads?”

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Nice of you to ask, but . . . Gene Kalland of San Pedro received an offer that “he found easy to refuse.” (Though it fits in with our last two items nicely).

miscelLAny In another sign of the times, girls at Marlborough School in Hancock Park will graduate Thursday from what the high school calls the first “full-impact, self-defense class” for credit. “Girls learn effective verbal strategies and negotiation skills to help avoid attack,” the school says, as well as “how to physically fight back . . . with the strongest parts of their bodies.”