Daily News from New York, New York • 274

SUNDAY NEWS, OCTOBER 21, 1928 46 0 vr4 1 4 us; 11 T-" it -it Th trial of Sheldon Clark in the little courtroom at Manti, Utah. Clark. Frank Clark (B), his father, sit close by while Lewis Larson, The Strange Killing In Utah Of Don Solovich, Known As Hollywood's Mystery Man CTli in mi ijjmmniiiMiiii j'tni k' I it h. 1 I I v. The Body in the Quicklime Next Sunday's SUNDAY NEWS Sheldon Clark in his cell.

CONSIDERABLE mystery was attached to the murder of Don Solovich. Solovich had formerly been Lita Grey Chffplin's butler. He had known a great deal about the private lives of various Hollywood celebrities. It was said, indeed, that he might have been Lita Chaplin's etar witness if her divorce suit had gone to trial. Why teas Solovich killed? Was he nothing more than the victim of a thug who wanted his car and his bank-roll? Or was it because of something he kneic? Hollywood's "man of mystery," as the papers later called him, came to his end in a roadside ditch on the desolate Levan cut-off, two miles from Gunnison, Utah, and twelve miles from Manti.

Jan. 6, 1928. He was not dead when his body afterward of a fractured skull. ery of the crime. Sheriff Clifford Patten, in Salt Lake City, arrested Sheldon Reid Clark.

22, of Manti, Utah. Clark was driving the dead man's car and spending: the dead man's money. He had in his pockets $2,169 in cash, including one $1,000 note and one $500 note. Clark admitted the killing after he had been questioned a short while. Got Out of Car And Fought.

He said that he had known Solovich about four months, that they had met in Los Aneeles and left there by auto the previous Tuesday, intending to enter the sheep business in Utah. He said that shortly before they reached Gunnison his companion became abusive. After they passed through the city the man became so offensive that they got out of the car and fought. Solovich, he said, had attacked him with a hammer. Clark said he, finally seized the hammer and! struck the other man in the head with it.

He left Solovich in the ditch and drove off in his car. Sheriff Patten took Clark back over the 175 miles of mountainous sensationa' nature 1. He said that Don Solovich had been Lita Grey Chaplin's butler. 2. He said that Charlie Chaplin would help him "if he knew about this." That night young Clark made a long statement in the ffiee of Clint M.

Edwards, count, ttomey of i IBj Pacific Atlantic) More clippings, most of them from a New York newspaper, featuring Solovich as "the handsomest man in the United States" and heir to a huge estate in France. And a sheaf of legal paper on which was written, but unsigned, a purported contract of employment of Solovich by Charles Chaplin at $1,000 a month, plus living and clothing expense, for a period of five years and stipulating that Solovich should not marry. It later developed that Solovich had had eight trunks, though only this one was ever found. It was stated that the mystery of why i Solovich had been killed would be completely cleared once the police solved the enigma of the seven missing trunks. On May 6 a news dispatch from Hollywood stated: "Peyton H.

Moore, attorney, and James H. Foese, investigator, today asserted that new evidence un- -covered in the mysterious slaying of Don Solovich, former butler for Mrs. Lita Grey Chaplin, indicates a connection between unnamed prominent Los Angeles men and Sheldon Clark, who is awaiting trial in Utah for the killing of bolovich near Ugden last Jan. 6. "Solovich, who was a member of Charlie Chaplin's personal staff before being employed by Chaplin's estranged wife, left a will that purported to bequeath more than $1,000,000.

According to Attorney Moore, only a few thousand dollars have been found. "Clint Edwards, county attorney i of Manti, Utah, where Clark goes on trial May 14, has been fur- nished with evidence, Moore said, 1 concerning Solovich's premonition of death and his charges, before leaving for Utah, that his life was 5 in danger and that he was under constant surveillance in Holly-; wood." As the day for the trial Sheared, the "enigma of the seven missing trunks" continued to puzzle the po-, lice and, it was said, others besides the police. Attorney Edwards as-, serted that there was some "mysterious significance" in the keen in- terest in the Solovich documents By Pacific Atlantic) Against the imll is (A) Sheldon defense lawyer, waits watchfully. i NEWS photo) The late Don Solovich San Pete He sought to paint as olack a picture as possible of the dead man and in doing so brought in the names of quite number of famous Hollywood stars. The man appeared to be a perfect fount of Hollywood gossip of the sort.

Solovich, he said, had become involved in financial difficulties with Lloyd Wright, Lita Chaplin's lawyer in the Chaplin divorce case, after Wright had advanced Don $15,000 with the understanding that the attorney was to obtain 25 per cent, of a large estate Solovich had inherited in Australia. The butler was charged with obtaining money ui.der false pretences after Wright learned that the estate story was false. Solovich had Itft Los Angeles, according to the prisoner, because he teas afraid of Kono, Charlie Las- Bt Pacilie Atlantic! Lloyd Wright, Lita Chaplin's was found, but he died shortly He did not regain consciousness. The police in their search of the body to ieam he man's identity observed that he had been rather thoroughly stripped except for a California kutomobile driver's license and a preat many newspaper clippings. The clippings told o.

a Don Solovich. and they indicated that this Don Solovich might have been something of a personage. He had been an opera dancer in 1925 and later a screen Furthermore, the clippings stated that he had been bequeathed half of an etat in southern France valued at more than $6,000,000. One item told how Solovich had been promised $2,000,000 by a sister, the Duchess of Marland, formerly Josephine Tartaree Solovich. A bond of $50,000 had been deposited in a Los Angeles bank, it was said, to bind thi3 agreement.

In addition the item stated: "Don ha3 been advised that $866,000 in cash is being held in trust for him in tne ianK oi inland, to be paid in April, 1926, when a year will have elapsed after the death of his grandparents." The grandparents were named as Rudolph II. and Emaline lartaree of French nobility. Solovich had Chaplin's Japanese secretary, bodyguard and chauffeur. Clark asserted that Solovich had owed Kono $300. Solovich, he said, was a coward always talking about how Kono would kill him.

"Whenever a car would come behind us in Los Angeles, he would hide hi, face and tell me to drive fast," said the prisoner. Ironically enough, Clark had been Solovich's bodyguard as well as driver. Sheriff Patten sorted over the various articles found on Clark and picked out a claim check in the slayer's name for a trunk shipped to the fashionable Hotel Utah in Salt Lake City from Pasadena, Cal. Along with many expensive articles of wearing apparel, this trunk contained: Christmas Cards From Film Notables. Scores of Christmas ards from Lita Chaplin, Pauline Starke, Dorothy and Lillian Gish, Mildred Harris Chaplin, Mr.

and Mrs. Sidney Chaplin and many other prominent members of the Hollywood elite. Several clothing bills issued to the Chaplin studio, indicating heavy purchases by Solovich. A purported note from Mildred Harris Chaplin to the film comedian, whose first wife she was. asking for an early meeting and requesting mat cnapnn give Lion a note to advise when it -would take place.

Pictures of Solovich as a female impersonator. Powder puffs and a screen makeup box. Hundreds of letters signed "Tom," professing regard for Solovich, which later were traced to Tom Harrington, former Chaplin employe, and before that secretary to King Gillette, safety razor manufacturer. Photographs from famous movie stars extending well wishes for good luck. A passport from Austria-Hungary, dated during 1907, for one Danus Lb Sabovich.

been a person ot about oo or 40, j.ighway to the scene of the crime, rather slight and dark hardly the The prisoner in bewailing his fate type to be found in the middle of (blamed his victim for the tra-redy, Utah. One could see that he would; tnd in the course of this journey have been far more at home in an: made two statements of a rather liroail uranium I win uiaa ixi uic wide pen spaces. But there he was. dead, most obviously murdered. When there is a murder, there must be a murderer.

a motive. In this instance the police were 1 ot long in findtng the murderer, Within a few hours of the discov.