The Palace of Grief

1/8/2025

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
It was the Roaring 20s, Prohibition was still in effect and Hollywoodland flourished when architect Gordon Kaufman designed a lavish home for the Doheny family, which was perched above Beverly Hills. The family moved into Greystone Mansion in the fall of 1928, when it was reported as the most expensive home ever built in California.

On February 16th 1929 Edward (Ned) L. Doheny Jr., son to the oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny Sr was left dead and bloodied on the floor of the ground floor guest room, his chauffeur/personal secretary (Theodore) Hugh Plunkett also lay dead. Ned in foreground, Plunkett (face down) in the hall

Kaufman had also built the Hoover Dam and the iconic Los Angeles Times building, and when hired by Ed Doheny Sr., who was an oil baron and a rival of John D. Rockefeller, he designed an estate that rivaled Hearst’s castle at San Simeon.

Ned Doheny Jr. was gifted with Greystone Mansion by his father, who lived across the street. The senior Doheny's company was the first one who struck oil in the Los Angeles area in 1892, and he spared no expense in building Greystone.

The household was composed of Ned Doheny, his wife Lucy and their five children, ages 3 to 14. The vast estate was staffed with 15 employees.

Among the employees was Theordore Hugh Plunkett, Ned Doheny's personal secretary. On the night of February 16, 1929 he arrived at the estate and let himself in with a pass key, since he was a trusted employee. In 1913, he was hired as the couple's chauffeur. After serving in the US Navy during World War I, Plunkett became the close friend and personal secretary of Ned Doheny, and a trusted family aide.

Ned's wife, Lucy Doheny saw when he arrived and went to a spare bedroom supposedly for his use when he was not staying in his apartment in Hollywood. Suddenly a single gunshot split the silence, and she quickly made her way to the mansion's east wing.

What happened exactly from this point on remains a mystery until this day.

Ned Doheny Jr. c. mid-1920s

Strangely Lucy Doheny called Dr. Ernest Fishbaugh, the family physician instead of the police. He hurried over from a nearby movie theater, and they went to the bedroom. Later they described where an agitated Plunkett, holding a gun in one hand answered the door. Then he closed and locked it, which was followed by another shot.

According to the pair they gained access around midnight, and found both men dead, and lying in a pool of their own blood. Plunkett's body was face down and spread eagle on the floor. He was wearing a pin-striped suit and he was still clutching a cigarette. Under his body was a Bisley model .45 caliber Colt revolver. Twelve feet away, Ned Doheny lay flat on his back, wearing night clothing and a robe. He had bullet wounds on both sides of his head, since the bullet went in just above his left ear and exited through the right temple.

Two hours would go by before police were called to the scene, and they found that both bodies had been moved. Suspicions grew when the statement given by the doctor and Lucy Doheny seem to be stilted and rehearsed.

Lucy Doheny said the bodies were moved when the doctor tried to resuscitate the men.

Two days later the coroner ruled the case a murder suicide, carried out by Hugh Plunkett after he went temporarily insane, and was allegedly denied a raise by his boss.

Leslie T. White an investigator for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office, had his own serious doubts as to the story given by Mrs. Doheny and Dr. Fishbaugh. He also questioned Lucy Doheny's brothers and brother-in-law, the servants, the night watchmen, as well as Hugh’s father Charles and brother Robert.

“The physical facts and the testimony of witnesses do not jibe. I understand, too, that some people believe the Doheny family are too influential to tamper with.” -- Leslie T. White, 1929

Lucy Doheny c.1920s

There was no inquest and the crime was all but covered up in the press, but such a salacious situation made the front page of all the newspapers all over the country, where Plunkett was painted as unstable and full of jealousy, however a clear motive was never provided. At the time Plunkett and Doheny were still under criminal investigation for the Teapot Dome bribery case which involved the senior Doheny, and this may have played a role.

The forensic evidence pointed to another scenario. Plunkett it appeared was shot from behind while smoking a cigarette. Based on this scenario, Doheny shot Plunkett, and then himself, not the other way around. Despite this contradiction as to the coroner's finding, the case was closed as a murder-suicide.

A post mortem examination found both men had been drinking. Doheny had powder burns around one of the bullet holes in his head, indicating the gun was no further than than 3 inches away from his temple when fired. Plunkett had no burns, making it unlikely he put the .45 to his own head. The revolver had no fingerprints suggesting it had been thoroughly wiped clean.

T. Hugh Plunkett (1896-1929)

That Hugh Plunkett's life was unraveling was no mystery. His wife had gotten an uncontested divorce in October, 1928 since there were indicators that he appeared to suffer from a "nervous ailment" which had become worse.

Dr. Fishbaugh would go on to tell police that Plunkett's disposition had started to decline in 1927, when he suffered from severely abscessed teeth. Each time a tooth was pulled he had a "severe nervous reaction." In December, 1928 he had a very painful swollen abscess over his left eye, which caused a persistent headache and a fever. Plunkett also suffered from insomnia, and he took Dial or Veronal, an over-the-counter barbiturate in order to sleep.

Fishbaugh had been attending Plunkett at the family's request. Ironically hours before the crime, the family held a conference since Plunkett's condition had worsened as he was not following the doctor's recommendation. Ned was trying to convince him to enter a sanatorium for rest and treatment, but he refused.

Was he afraid he would be diagnosed as insane and committed against his will when he wanted to leave? This undoubtedly would spare him from testifying in the Teapot Dome case, and God knows the Dohenys had the money to make him disappear behind asylum walls.

The newspapers though were not ready to let the story die down, especially with Ed Doheny's connection to the Teapot Dome Scandal. Rumors swirled as whether the men were involved in more than a platonic relationship, or if perhaps it was a romantic triangle involving Ned's wife.

The mystery lies in what happened before the police arrived. Several theories have arisen throughout the years. In one, Ned was the one who called the doctor to calm Hugh down. In another, the men were involved in a homosexual relationship, and Ned killed Plunkett and then himself; a third was that Lucy had killed both men.

Another stressor in Plunkett's life was that he was panicking at the thought of having to testify in the Teapot Dome case and incriminating the Dohenys. He had accompanied Ned Doheny when they dropped off the $100,000 in the bribery case. The family had been loyal to him over the years, but they had their wealth to protect them, and in the end he was not connected to them by blood. If they withdrew their support, what would happen to him?

Within a few days of his death, Ned Doheny was laid to rest at Forest Lawn in Glendale, which is where Plunkett was buried as well. This was surprising since Ned's stepmother Carrie Estelle Doheny was one of the biggest contributors to the Catholic diocese in Los Angeles.

The Doheny family plot was at Calvary Cemetery, and why Ned was buried in Forest Lawn, a secular cemetery, has never been explained.

Leslie T. White, an investigator on the case with the murder weapon c.1929

Ned's own mother had taken her life in 1900, when he was 7 years old. In February, 1900, eight months before her death Carrie Doheny filed a divorce suit against Edward Doheny for desertion. The couple had separated 10 months before. The story put out by the family and carried by the newspapers was that she swallowed a large dose of fluid use in electric batteries, mistaking it for her medicine. This had caused her to die in agony. She had been an invalid for some time and suffered from alcoholism. Her first child Eileen, died in 1892 when she was 8 years old. Within three months of their divorce, Doheny, Sr. married Carrie Betzold, 20 years younger than him.

Was Ned Doheny buried in another cemetery because like his mother, it was suspected he had taken his own life, or perhaps that he was gay? The first Mrs. Doheny was originally interred at Evergreen Cemetery, but after Ned's death, Edward Sr. had her remains, and those of their daughter Eileen, disinterred and placed with Ned.

If there was a benefit to be gained by the death of Ned Doheny, was that due to sympathy for his father the Congressional investigation into the Teapot Dome scandal was called off, and he was forever relieved of having to testify.

Despite the best efforts of Leslie T. White in furthering the investigation it soon became evident that Doheny's millions could in effect shut down further inquiries, which it did within 36 hours of the crime.

Greystone with its distinctive black and white tiled hallway

Leslie T. White continued to work for the district attorney's investigation bureau, but eventually resigned due to the politics that could interfere in an honest investigation. His friend Erle Stanley Gardner, the creator of Perry Mason advised him to write the detective stories sought by pulp magazine editors. In 1936, he published his memoir, Me, Detective which detailed the corrupt obstacles he faced as he investigated cases for the district attorney. He reviewed several sensational cases including the crime at Greystone. The book became a bestseller, especially in Los Angeles.

In 1936, White met Raymond Chandler at a gathering of the Black Mask's pulp writers. This was a few months before Me, Detective was published and echoes of the Dohenys were found in Chandler's story The Big Sleep. The Sternwood family dovetailed the Dohenys, and he also included a similar estate to Greystone in his story Farewell, My Lovely. He made reference to the murder-suicide scenario in his novel The High Window (1942).

The flavor of all the depictions was that wealth could derail investigations, and protect the privileged from embarrassing and compromising exposure, including murder. Ed Doheny's millions made the DA bury the truth.

Greystone c.1928

Three years after her husband's death Lucy Doheny married Leigh M. Battson, a Los Angeles financier and stockbroker. They continued to live in Greystone for 26 years, and in 1955, she sold the grounds to Paul Trousdale, and sold the mansion to Chicago industrialist Henry Crown, who never lived there and rented it to film studios

Lucy moved to another, smaller house that was constructed nearby. She died in 1993, at the age of 100.

Later the city of Beverly Hills bought the Tudor style estate that included garages, stables, kennels, service buildings, swimming pool, two tennis courts and English and Italian style gardens which cost $3.1 million in 1928, and made it into a city park. This was after Crown planned to demolish the building in order to subdivide it. The American Film Institute occupied the house from 1969-1982 at the cost of $1.00 per year. It was added to the National Register of Historical Places in 1976.

Even though the family wanted to move on, the mystery persisted. Unsurprisingly ghosts are said to haunt the mansion. There are reports of a man in a black suit, and other say it's the spirit of Lucy Doheny who still walks the halls, wafting a trail of lilac-scented perfume behind her. She never spoke publicly about what happened that night in what the newspapers called the "Palace of Grief," and perhaps that is why her ghost refuses to rest.

The Beverly Hills estate has been featured in numerous films and TV series, recognizable with its distinctive black and white tiled hallway; they include: Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte, Ghostbusters II, Gilmore Girls, MacGuyver, The Witches of Eastwick, and There Will Be Blood which was loosely based on the life of Edward Doheny via the Upton Sinclair book Oil!