INFAMOUS: The Mulholland Drive Murders

The gist

In 2003, LAPD detective Cliff Shepherd finds a bloody bra in a forgotten evidence box belonging to an unidentified woman discovered on Mulholland Drive in 1969. DNA testing eventually identifies her as Reet Jervitsen, a 19-year-old from Toronto who was stabbed over 150 times. Shepherd's work also reveals potential connections to Marina Haba, a 17-year-old brutally murdered just ten months earlier in the same area, though detectives now believe the cases may be separate crimes.

Key takeaways

• Reet Jervitsen, Jane Doe 59, was stabbed 150+ times in the neck and torso on Mulholland Drive in November 1969; her body was dragged across the road and dumped in a ravine 15 feet below
• Marina Haba, a college freshman, was murdered January 1, 1969, stabbed multiple times, strangled, and sexually assaulted; her body was found 2 miles away off Mulholland Drive, with her purse at a nearby vista point
• Both women had eaten 2-5 hours before their deaths, suggesting they may have shared a meal with their killer(s)
• Reet traveled from Toronto to LA in fall 1969 to follow a man named "Jean" from Montreal; detectives believe she disappeared within weeks of arriving
• Marina may have been with an older married man named John (age 23) the night she disappeared, contradicting her family's claim she had a different boyfriend
• Marina's father had OSS (early CIA) ties involving psychological warfare and German POW interrogation, though detectives believe her death was likely random violence rather than a targeted attack
• A possible Marina suspect is Kirk "Spanky" Smith, a biker and drug dealer with an extensive criminal record including prison escapes and bank robberies, who died in 1998
• Marina's sexual assault kit and other physical evidence may still exist but hasn't been tested; a pipe burst at an evidence facility raises questions about its condition

Notable quotes

• "What if finding the missing person didn't answer the mystery? What if it only made it stranger?"

• "You have to be angry to stab someone 150 times. That's usually the kind of violence I see when the attacker is an intimate partner." — Detective Louis Rivera

Worth a full listen?

Listen to the full episode if you have any connection to 1960s Los Angeles or Toronto, lived near the Mulholland Drive area, knew anyone matching the descriptions of "Jean/Pierre" or "John," or attended medical school in Montreal/Toronto in that era—your memory could solve decades-old crimes.