On March 10, 1928, Christine Collins gave her 9-year old son Walter some money to go to the movies. When he didn’t return long after the show was over, she contacted the Los Angeles Police Department.

Police followed hundreds of dead-end leads and conducted extensive searches that eventually spread nationwide. Five months after Walter’s disappearance, police in DeKalb, Illinois picked up a twelve-year old runaway boy who claimed to be Walter Collins. LA Police Captain J.J. Jones, feeling the pressure of solving the case, told Mrs. Collins that they had located her son in Illinois and she would have to pay transportation costs to bring his home. She agreed. At the reunion, however, Mrs. Collins was skeptical and finally said that the boy was not Walter. A frustrated Captain Jones persuaded her to “try the boy out” by taking him home. Mrs. Collins did so reluctantly.

After three weeks, Mrs. Collins returned to the police and stood firm on her belief that this boy was not her son. She offered to produce dental records to back up her claim. Captain Jones grew furious. He accused her of being a bad mother and of trying to bring ridicule to the LA Police. He had her committed to the Los Angeles County Hospital under a “Code 12” — a term used to incarcerate someone who was deemed difficult or an inconvenience.

While Mrs. Collins was in the hospital, Captain Jones requestioned the boy… who finally admitted to being Arthur Hutchens Jr. He confessed that he lied about being Walter Collins as a ploy to get to Los Angeles to meet his favorite actor, cowboy star Tom Mix. Arthur Hutchens was sent back to Illinois and Mrs. Collins was released… ten days later.

Christine Collins sued the Los Angeles Police Department as well as lodging a separate suit against Captain J.J. Jones. She won, but Jones refused to pay.

In 1929, serial killer Gordon Northcott was found guilty of murdering three boys in the Los Angeles area the previous year. Although Sara Northcott, Gordon’s mother and accomplice in the murders, confessed to killing Walter, Gordon denied it. Gordon Northcott was executed at San Quentin Prison in 1930.

Walter’s fate was never confirmed.

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Despite being a key figure in the era of the “girl next door,” Patti Brill had a pretty unremarkable career. As compared to her contemporaries, like Debbie Reynolds and Jane Powell, the majority of Patti’s screen appearances were uncredited. She exhibited the same bubbly personality and demure demeanor as Reynolds and Powell, but, unfortunately, was not much more than a prop in the two dozen or so films in which she appeared. Patti co-starred in the romantic The Enchanted Cottage, the atmospheric horror film The Seventh Victim from producer Val Lewton and several films in “The Falcon” series of detective stories.

As her career came to an end, she was featured in a single episode of The Donna Reed Show.

Patti was married four times, including five years to a disabled World War II veteran which sparked her interest in helping other war veterans.

Just two years after her last marriage, Patti passed away in 1963 at the age of 39. There are conflicting stories regarding the cause of death.

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Viola Fletcher was born in Comanche, Oklahoma, but moved to Tulsa with her family. The Fletchers lived in Greenwood, an affluent neighborhood of black families, known as “Black Wall Street.” On May 31, 1921, mobs of white residents — some supposedly working as deputized agent of local government — attacked and destroyed the homes and businesses in more than 35 square blocks of Greenwood. Seven-year-old Viola was asleep when the massacre erupted. The Fletcher family, along with other residents, fled for their lives. They lost everything but the clothes they were wearing.

One hundred years after the horrible event, Viola and other survivors filed suit against the city of Tulsa, the Tulsa Board of Commissioners and the Oklahoma Military Department, seeking reparations. Despite testimony, the suit was dismissed. Unfettered, Viola testified for reparations before the US Congress, stating:

“I will never forget the violence of the white mob when we left our home. I still see Black men being shot, Black bodies lying in the street. I still smell smoke and see fire. I still see Black businesses being burned. I still hear airplanes flying overhead. I hear the screams”

A Justice Department review in 2024 found that federal prosecution may have been possible a century ago, but there was no longer an avenue to bring a criminal case.

In 2023, Viola, with the help of her grandson, wrote a memoir entitled Don’t Let Them Bury My Story.

She passed away in 2025 at the age of 111.

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Born in Trinidad, Hazel Scott moved to the United States when she was four. Labeled a child prodigy, Hazel began music studies at the Julliard School of Music at 8 years old. She was able to pick out any tune she heard on the piano. At 13, she joined an all-girl jazz band, playing piano and trumpet.

By 16, Hazel was performing on the radio, as well as with Count Basie’s Orchestra at Roseland Ballroom. Throughout the 30s and 40s, Hazel was a featured attraction at the popular Cafe Society, where she entertained the crowds with her jazz, blues and boogie-woogie. Her act became nationally known and Hazel was making $75,000 a year.

Hazel made the jump to movies, however, she refused to take roles of maids or domestics. She negotiated “final cut” privileges for all of her films and insisted on wearing her own clothes and jewelry to control her own image. Hazel was featured in five Hollywood motion pictures and insisted on being credited as “Miss Hazel Scott as Herself.” In 1950, Hazel became the first American black performer to host their own television series.

Hazel remained a staunch advocate for civil rights. She was outspoken against racial discrimination and segregation, as well as growing McCarthyism.

In the late 50s, Hazel moved to France, where she enjoyed more success. When she returned to the US a decade later, she began to take roles on episodic television, including dramas and soap operas.

Hazel passed way from cancer in 1981 at the age of 61. At the 61st Grammy Awards ceremony, singer Alicia Keys thanked Hazel Scott for her inspiration, noting that “she always wanted to play two pianos,” alluding to Hazel’s ability to play two pianos at one time.

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