In Photos: Corruption and Crime in Los Angeles

Betty Rowland reclines on a sofa backstage at the Follies, 1938.
Photograph: Cliff Wesselmann/BL Press LLC/TASCHEN

A victim of a mad butcher, 1938.
Photograph: Cliff Wesselmann/BL Press LLC/TASCHEN

A detective examines a murder weapon, 1940.
Photograph: Cliff Wesselmann/BL Press LLC/TASCHEN

A bartender was slain in a Hollywood robbery gone awry, 1940.
Photograph: Cliff Wesselmann/BL Press LLC/TASCHEN

Detectives hover over the body of actor Carole Landis, who, after a life of depression and failed marriages, overdosed on seconal in 1948.
Photograph: Robert O’Ritchie/Jim Heimann Collection/TASCHEN