Guenther was famous among true-crime devotees—he’d become something of a staple in the genre, his skilled investigative work having solved a number of notable murders. His better-known cases included the Cotton Club murders and the 1958 killing of the author James Ellroy’s mother. Guenther never solved that crime, but Ellroy still hailed him, in My Dark Places, as one of the best homicide detectives ever to work in L.A. Most everyone who wrote about Guenther noted his penetrating blue eyes, his unruly mop of hair—now gone white—and his stocky build. Listening to him talk, I could see why
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