Forensic History: The murders that made the case for Orange County’s Crime Lab
In an era when murder trials were a form of macabre entertainment for the masses, Orange County was home to one of the most sensational.
George Gollum and Beulah Louise Overell were accused of murdering Overell’s parents by staging an explosion aboard their yacht on March 15, 1947.
Beulah’s parents did not approve of her relationship with George and they threatened to disinherit her, so the young couple planned their murder out of frustration and greed, according to prosecutors.
When the yacht exploded in Newport Harbor, it initially was suspected that a gasoline leak was the culprit. However, investigators quickly set their sights on murder when they found more than 30 sticks of dynamite wired to an alarm clock detonator and attached to the boat’s battery. An autopsy of the Overells’ bodies also showed they were bludgeoned to death before the explosion occurred.
The case was highly publicized and garnered national attention, which prompted the State Attorney General to take over prosecution of the case.
Orange County did not have its own crime lab at the time, so the evidence was sent out, including the victims’ bodies, the suspects’ bloody clothes, a receipt for the dynamite found on the suspects and wire and tape collected from the suspects’ car that was similar to what was used in the explosion.
The evidence mounted against Beulah and George, but each time the prosecution presented a new piece of evidence in court, the judge would not allow it. Delays in processing ultimately led to the young couple’s acquittal.
The outcome of this trial prompted Orange County to form its own Crime Lab in 1948 so that analysis of important evidence would remain in Orange County.
