Jean Spangler
| Jean Spangler | |
|---|---|
Headshot of Spangler ca. 1949
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| Born |
Jean Elizabeth Spangler September 2, 1923 Seattle, Washington, J.S. |
| Disappeared | October 7, 1949 (aged 26) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Status | Missing for 67 years, 4 months and 6 days |
| Spouse(s) | Dexter Benner (m. 1942–46) |
Jean Elizabeth Spangler (September 2, 1923 – disappeared October 7, 1949) was an American dancer, model and bit-part actress in Hollywood films and in early television. Spangler, who began her career in 1948, disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 1949, and her case remains unsolved.
Born in Seattle, Washington, She attended Franklin High School and graduated in 1941. As a teen, Spangler had danced with the Earl Carroll Theatre and Florentine Gardens. In 1942, she married manufacturer Dexter Benner. They had a daughter, Christine (born April 22, 1944), and divorced in 1946. Spangler and Benner engaged in a long custody battle over their daughter, until Spangler was awarded custody in 1948. At the time of her disappearance, she lived with her mother Florence, five-year-old daughter Christine, brother Edward, and sister-in-law Sophie, on Colgate Avenue in the Park La Brea residential complex near Wilshire Boulevard, in Los Angeles, California.
On October 7, 1949, Spangler left her home in Los Angeles around 5:00 p.m. She left her daughter with her sister-in-law Sophie, and said that she was meeting her former husband to discuss a late child support payment; after that, she was going to work on a night shoot for a film. The last person to see her was a clerk in a store near her home, who said that she appeared to be waiting for someone. She was never seen again. Spangler's mother was visiting family in Kentucky at the time. Spangler's sister-in-law, Sophie, went to the police and filed a missing person report the next day.
Though Spangler had told her sister-in-law that she was going to work on a movie set after she met with her ex-husband, this lead went nowhere. She had worked as an extra and bit-part actress for several different Hollywood studios, but none of those studios had any work in progress or were even open on the evening of October 7.
Police questioned Spangler's ex-husband, Dexter Benner, about her statement to her sister-in-law that she was going to meet him about his child support payments. He said that he had not seen his former wife for several weeks. His new wife Lynn Lasky Benner, to whom he had been married only one month, stated that he was with her at the time of the disappearance.
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