Charlotte Shelby
Depending on your viewpoint, Charlotte Shelby was either an overbearing stage mother who damaged her daughter, Mary Miles Minter’s, mental health, or a concerned mother who sought to protect her naïve child. What stands without doubt is that Charlotte became extremely rich on the back of Mary’s success. Charlotte controlled Mary’s finances, even when the latter was an adult. This led to a string of court battles later in life.
“Everyone knew who shot him. There was never any doubt in anybody’s mind. We were in the wild and woolly west, and California had some unwritten laws. One was that a man or a woman, a mother or a father, had a perfect right to shoot and kill a man who had debauched his or her girl. It was just accepted, and mostly they didn’t even try them.” – Adela Rogers St. Johns (pictured), journalist, novelist and screenwriter.
Chauncey Eaton was Charlotte Shelby’s chauffeur. If he’s talking about the murder weapon here that suggests either Charlotte Shelby, Mary Miles Minter, or a person with access to Charlotte’s gun killed William Desmond Taylor.
Hannah Howe 