Murder LA 000063

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 15th, 1944

via Dayton Beach
Morning Journal

31-year-old Otto Steve Wilson is alternately listed in newspapers of the time as a waiter or a janitor. In one he's called a "janitor-waiter," the fine details of which, perhaps, he was discussing with a young woman at a bar in Downtown Los Angeles. Maybe they were discussing his time in the Navy, from which he had been medically discharged a few years prior, or "The Walking Dead", the Boris Karloff movie he had seen at a nearby theater earlier in the day.

Whatever they discussed, it was likely geared towards getting her to leave with him.

Their conversation was cut short when Wilson was suddenly handcuffed from behind by a patrolman and arrested.

Wilson sat in another bar the day before, where he met 26-year-old Virgie Lee Griffin. She left with him and they checked into a nearby hotel as Mr. and Mrs. O.S. Wilson.

He would later tell police that they had a fight over money and he went out to buy whisky and purchased a butcher knife as well. When he got back to the hotel he strangled Griffin to death and then decided to dismember her for disposal. Wilson stayed up "all Tuesday night cutting the body and drinking whisky."

The next morning he didn't seem concerned about disposal anymore, as he said he pushed the corpse into a closet and went out to see the movie.

He got a thrill out of sitting in the theater, nobody knowing what he had done. Afterwards he went to another bar and met Lillian Johnson, whose given age varies widely from 35 to 48. She had gone by various aliases and had a police record for check forgery. 

Johnson went with Wilson to another hotel where he again registered with his real name. He killed and cut her as well, then headed back out to yet another bar--the one where he was arrested.

Wilson's description had gone out over the police radio after a maid found the first victim. The second was discovered shortly thereafter.

Wilson denied involvement at first, but quickly confessed. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity but was deemed sane and eventually sentenced to death via the gas chamber at San Quentin.

via The Milwaukee Sentinel