This case was on today (5/29), and I've honestly never seen this one before, or heard anything about it. I searched through the archives here, and on google - and found absolutely nothing on it.

For those of you that have seen it, any theories as to what happened? Or any updates? Personally, I definitely think that the wife hired hitmen to do the job, but it was just all very odd. Like it definitely didn't add up to a suicide with the change of clothes and the phone being off the hook...but, ya never know.

Spark,

Some if it seems to rely too hard on "mom's" memory... how does she know the garage wasn't cleared out? As I recall she only had a dream that it was full.

Plus the timeline seems kind of fuzzy.. how do the hitmen know the housekeeper fled the house with the ex-wife? Then the suggestion that they poisoned Dr. Loseff to knock him out to put him in a car to CO him?... vs shooting him? strangling/lynching him?

Seems like an elaborate crime scene to set up.... without the neighbors or anyone seeing anything in the late afternoon?

I'm not saying I agree 100% with the suicide theory, definately another case where the policework could have been more thorough.

I might think that the wife/ex-wife might have had something to do with Ted Losef's death. Either it was a poisoning OR the ex-wife hired hitmen IMO.

Just a thought.

I might think that the wife/ex-wife might have had something to do with Ted Losef's death. Either it was a poisoning OR the ex-wife hired hitmen IMO.

Just a thought.

Yeah, I think she hired a hitman too. That's why I'm not married.

http://www.pichut.org/up/salkata.gif

The ex-wife was "by all accounts an alcoholic", per Robert Stack.

Suicide.

The ex-wife was "by all accounts an alcoholic", per Robert Stack.

The man told it the way it was, ALWAYS! :rock:

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y77/BigTMan/_mg_2152.jpg

This one was always a no brainer for me. It's obvious that based off of the house keepers' account that Loseff was murdered. She kept getting a busy signal when trying to phone Loseff's home, and then after eight hours she got through. If Loseff killed himself, who hung up the phone? His wife kept insisiting she was scared because he had a gun, but he wasn't found shot to death. His wife also wanted to accompany the house keeper back to her house, which IMO is probably because she wanted to be away from the scene because she knew Loseff was going to be murdered. I think Loseff's mother's scenario is almost exactly what happened. He was forcefully poisoned, and then the scene was staged to look like a suicide. His wife died from an overdose when a witness came forward and said the "suicide note" written by Loseff was actually written TWO YEARS before he was found dead...is that a coincidence? Seems to me like she overdosed to avoid prosecution/being found out. Any other thoughts on this case?

W/O know Loseff's mental state it's impossible to completely rule out suicide. However, his wife's suicide after evidence was found possibly implicating her in his death, makes his death being a murder a possibility.

For this to have been a "hit" though, this would have taken the work of a skilled killer that apparently can keep his/her mouth shut. There aren't many of them and their services would cost quite a bit. How did Mrs. Loseff pay the killer?

I lean towards Mrs. Loseff giving her husband something and then leaving him in his vehicle w/ the engine running. That explains the lack of a traceable payment to a killer.

W/O know Loseff's mental state it's impossible to completely rule out suicide. However, his wife's suicide after evidence was found possibly implicating her in his death, makes his death being a murder a possibility.

For this to have been a "hit" though, this would have taken the work of a skilled killer that apparently can keep his/her mouth shut. There aren't many of them and their services would cost quite a bit. How did Mrs. Loseff pay the killer?

I lean towards Mrs. Loseff giving her husband something and then leaving him in his vehicle w/ the engine running. That explains the lack of a traceable payment to a killer.

Never thought about the wife acting alone, but that seems more likely. She could have poisoned him, but then again if it were murder she would have had to have at least one accomplice to move him into the car, and to move his car into the garage. Unless of course he started to feel sick and attempted to get into his car to get help and them died, that's also possible but less likely.

I always thought this seemed like a murder.

1) The garage was filled to the brim with Ted's belongings and as he had recently had back surgery, it would have been extremely difficult for him to completely clear it out to use the garage. According to his mother, he always parked in front of the house.
2) Ted's complete change of clothes from the time he was last scene to a few hours later, when his body was found. It's been some time since I last saw the segment, but weren't those other clothes missing?
3) The vomit on the bedspread would help support the poison theory. Also, didn't the autopsy show that he seemed to have put up a great fight?
4) The telephone. Off the hook for 8 hours and then hung up? How would he have been able to do that himself?
5) The suicide note being two years old.

I think Zel was definitely on to something and I'm sorry she didn't get to have some answers before she passed away. Overall, a very sad case.

The fact that Ted's wife insisted she leave with the housekeeper was the thing that stood out the most to me. I think she had a pretty good idea that her housekeeper would get out of there if a potentially violent scene was about to take place, and she planned from the start to leave with her in order to get away from the scene and have a witness to testify as to her whereabouts during the time of Ted's death.

The fact that Ted's wife insisted she leave with the housekeeper was the thing that stood out the most to me. I think she had a pretty good idea that her housekeeper would get out of there if a potentially violent scene was about to take place, and she planned from the start to leave with her in order to get away from the scene and have a witness to testify as to her whereabouts during the time of Ted's death.

Exactly. The housekeeper kept trying to get ahold of Loseff for about 8 hours but kept getting a busy signal when she called the house. IIRC, Loseff was dead during this time. Then after 8 hours, the phone began to ring. Zel knew that Ted was going to be murdered during that time period. The phone being hung up was the way to let her know it was over, IMO.

I think murder too, however, the moms dream is what led to anyone investigating lol I dunno....seems off.

I think murder too, however, the moms dream is what led to anyone investigating lol I dunno....seems off.
The dream was a reminder that the garage used to be filled to the brim and Ted never parked in there; because of back surgery, he couldn't have been the one to have moved everything out and neither the housekeeper nor the wife ever came forward about cleaning out the garage. So who did? If it was just a dream I would be skeptical, too, but the rest of the evidence is pretty solid that Ted was murdered.

To be honest, of all the suicide or murder cases on UM, this is probably the one I feel most certain about being a murder. It seems most people in this thread concur, as well as LE, even if the case was initially classified as a suicide. The wife was definitely involved and I doubt it would ever have been so evident had it not been for the housekeeper.

I watched this again semi-recently.

I don't know that suicide should be ruled out.

There was a lot about the murder scenario that bothered me.

It was mentioned that an autopsy wasn't performed until several years after the fact.

The "murder" theory pretty much came to the mother in a dream.

The wife's bizarre behavior toward the mother could be a result of a bitter impending divorce (between the wife and Ted) exacerbated by chronic alcohol abuse.

All the beer can found at the scene. Loseff could have consumed the beer himself (even though he rarely drank). He and his wife were on the rocks and a divorce was coming if you believe the statement made to the housekeeper, Mary. Difficult times to be sure. He could have decided to knock back a few and end it all. What better way to end it as painlessly as he did.

He could have vomited from drinking too much and decided to change shirts before killing himself. The shirt he was found in was a dress shirt after all. Maybe he wanted to go out wearing his best.

Obviously, he did write the "suicide note" (as a friend testified) and it was kept around. He could have just used the same note on this occasion.

This was always a murder to me. I think UM focused to much on the "Mothers dream" for dramatic purposes. I think that's where her suspicions came about. She realized how packed his garage was and how he never pulled the car into it. Then she started investigating. It wasn't the "mothers dream". The housekeepers story is damning. First off, if he killed themselves, he couldn't have put the phone back on the hook at 8pm. Somebody has to have taken the phone off the hook for 4-5 hours and then put it back on at 8pm. Secondly, The vomiting. Yes, an autopsy even after burial can easily detect vomit. Carbon monoxide doesn't cause a violent vomiting spell. Third, he had no vomit on his clothes meaning somebody changed his clothes after he had a violent vomiting spell. The clothes he was last seen wearing were never found. Someone changed him and got rid of the clothes. The vomit the housekeeper found on the bed sheet. Lastly, the alibi the wife created for herself was way to convenient. Yes, they were probably friends of the wife or someone close to her she had kill him.

Here is an article from 1985 (This happened in 1974), As I suspected, Unsolved Mysteries used the "Mothers Dream" for dramatic purposes....



A Mother's Obsession: Justice for Son

April 21, 1985|LAURIE BECKLUND | Times Staff Writer and


It was a classic suicide. A prominent Hancock Park surgeon, trapped in an unhappy marriage, drove his Cadillac into his garage on Saturday afternoon, Feb. 23, 1974, and sat reading Time magazine until the exhaust fumes finally overcame him.

That was the story that seemed to be told by the circumstances of Dr. Theodore Loseff's death. The police, the coroner and virtually everyone else declared it suicide.

Everyone, that is, except his mother, Zelda Loseff.

Almost from the beginning, Zelda Loseff did not believe that her firstborn would take, by his own hand, the life she had given him 41 years before. She began to suspect that her son had been murdered, and suspicious in particular that her son's wife, who is now dead, had killed him.

Today, a little more than 11 years later, the Loseff case has become a classic of another sort: the story of a little old lady whose determination--some say obsession--is at least as compelling as the evidence she turned up.





Zelda Loseff began her investigation a few months after her son's death. In the intervening years she has interviewed more than 100 potential witnesses and written dozens of letters. She has hired six private investigators, five attorneys, four forensic pathologists and a handwriting expert. So far, her investigation has cost her more than $100,000, she said.

"I became a Grandma Moses in the art of murder investigation," said Loseff, now 74, in an interview. "I now know the who, how, what, when and where of my son's murder. And that is a terribly inhuman burden to bear. I want to know, will there ever be a light at the end of this black tunnel? Will my son's murderers ever be brought to trial?"

The answer, at the moment, is no.

"It does not appear that we can consider filing a case at this time," said Stephen Kay, a deputy district attorney who supervises the criminal complaints division of the Los Angeles district attorney's office.

"The principal person Mrs. Loseff suspects of the murder is dead, and there appears to be no evidence establishing the guilt of any other party beyond a reasonable doubt. Mrs. Loseff seems like a very nice, sincere person. I hope that if anything ever happened to me, my mother would be equally energetic. But, at least at this point, the police have closed the case, and there's nothing we can do."

So the answer is no. But Zelda Loseff is not accustomed to taking no for an answer.

It was 10 o'clock that Saturday night when Zelda (as authorities have come to call her) learned that her son was dead. Her only other child, a daughter, knocked on her apartment door, and said, "Mother, Ted died." A few hours earlier, the daughter explained, he had taken his own life.

Ted had been a brilliant child. Zelda had raised him and his sister by herself after her husband died of cancer. College-educated and interested in business, Zelda had supported the family by establishing a successful encyclopedia franchise in the Midwest. The son had grown up to be a doctor, like his father. The father had died at 37. And now, the son was dead at 41.

"It was like a bomb had exploded in my life," Zelda recalled. "I kept asking, 'Why would he kill himself? Why?' "

For information on her son's death, Zelda turned first to his widow, Wilda. The couple had been married just 27 months. They had lived high and well, but their marriage was tormented, Zelda learned after Ted's death. Ted had privately complained that Wilda had had frequent affairs and drank heavily. They had contemplated divorce.

After the death, Zelda said, Wilda was little given to mourning. She neglected for months to put a headstone on her husband's grave. She became hostile toward Zelda, refusing to discuss Ted.





Desperate to learn more about her son's death, Zelda finally made an appointment with the Los Angeles Police Department detective who had handled Ted's case.

It was Aug. 9, 1974. She remembers the date--it was her 64th birthday. More significantly, it marked the beginning of her investigation. The detective, though kind, refused to give her the police report because she was not "next of kin." She had a similar experience with the Los Angeles County coroner-medical examiner even though, she later learned, the coroner's report was public.

"I gave birth to Ted, raised him and educated him, but I was not next of kin," she said. "I was just a mother."

In 1977, three years after Ted Loseff's death, a private investigator Zelda had hired obtained the coroner's and police reports.

Their contents provided a shock.

The police investigation was cursory. Because the death seemed so obviously a suicide, few questions had been asked. The coroner's report was even briefer. No autopsy had been done. No blood had been taken to confirm that her son had died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Some of Zelda's sorrow turned to anger.

'Living Hell'



"I went through living hell just because nobody took two teaspoons of blood!" she said later. "I had been taught to be a lady and not raise my voice, but I should have been screaming bloody murder all along."

The reports provided fuel for her investigation: names of possible witnesses, bits of forensic detail.

She began to reconstruct Ted's last day. He got a haircut that morning, returned home to eat two roast beef sandwiches, watched sports on TV, and spoke with a friend by phone.

His wife returned about 2:30 p.m. They argued. She ran out and spent the afternoon at the maid's house, saying she was afraid to go back. Finally, after dark, she called police to meet her at the house and escort her inside.

After police found the house empty, Wilda suggested they look in the garage. The suggestion seemed "strange," one policeman would say later. But they looked anyway. They found Ted's body in his car.





Wilda told police that Ted had a history of suicide attempts. What appeared to be a suicide note scribbled on a cardboard shirt collar insert was found on an upstairs dresser: "Wilda--All I ever asked was one moment's compassion and understanding. I love you. T."

The suicide theory seemed to hold. Yet, some details seemed wrong to the mother.

Unlikely Items

Ted Loseff didn't drink beer or smoke. Yet beer cans and cigarette packages--brands Zelda later learned were favored by certain of Wilda's friends--were found in the kitchen.

Ted was a fashionable dresser, yet he was found wearing a pair of old summer slacks and his best dress shirt with French cuffs. The clothes the maid had seen him wearing that morning were never found.

Ted had worn glasses since age 3. How, Zelda wondered, could he have been reading that magazine that police found in his lap?

Zelda located two people who were at the Loseffs' home the night his body was found. One was Edward Jay, a Long Beach artist and close friend of both Wilda and Ted. The other was the maid, Bea Burrows, at whose home Wilda had spent the afternoon, and who was the last person known to have seen Ted alive.

Jay described some things Wilda had done that he had found puzzling.

Wilda had run up with Ted's glasses as they were taking the body out of the garage, he recalled, and asked him to put them on Ted's face. Shortly before his death, she had abruptly decided she did not want a divorce, but would not say why. Moreover, he believed the "suicide note" was an old note from Ted that Wilda had shown him months before.

"I began to realize all this in retrospect," Jay told The Times this week. "I'd have to be an awful idiot to think it wasn't murder."

Maid's Suspicions

Burrows, the maid, told Zelda that she believed it was murder from the beginning.

"That man didn't commit suicide, and I said so that night," Burrows said in an interview. "Someone did it for him."

Burrows had worked for 17 years at a hospital and had cleaned up after patients who had died. She was puzzled that there was no fecal matter or urine in Loseff's clothing, which is common after death, and that his coloration seemed unlike that of other carbon monoxide victims she had seen.

"Someone cleaned that man up," Burrows said. "I told police that. But who was going to take the word of a domestic worker? The police said an autopsy would determine it for sure."





When Zelda came to see her three years later, her advice was simple:

"Dig him up," Burrows said. "You dig him up and find out how he died."

In 1978, Zelda got a court order to exhume her son's body. The resulting autopsy, conducted by Dr. Irving Root of San Bernardino, turned up the first physical evidence in her case.

Accurate forensic tests were impossible under such circumstances, Root said. But he did make one important finding: There was evidence of vomit in the deepest recesses of the lungs, suggesting a violent vomiting episode at death. If no vomit had been found on his clothing, Root surmised, his clothes might have been changed.

Blames Cyanide

"It is my opinion that the most probable cause of death is death due to cyanide poisoning, the cyanide having been taken elsewhere other than in the car, death having occurred elsewhere other than in the car, and the dead body having been moved from the place of death and placed into the car by unknown persons," Root concluded.

Zelda hired other forensic experts to review Root's work. Although they did not agree on cyanide as the cause of death, they felt that the autopsy raised serious questions about the nature of the death.

The conclusions were so disturbing that they affected Zelda physically. She found it difficult to eat, and suffered restrained urges to vomit, she said, in subconscious empathy with her son's last moments.

She often awoke at night, thinking of her son's death. She wrote hundreds of memos about the "inconsistencies" she had found in the case, addressed the memos "To Whom It May Concern" and filed them away.



Passers-by had noted movement inside the house long after the time that forensics experts concluded Ted had died, she wrote. The maid had seen a large stack of cash upstairs that was gone that night. A vomit-stained bedspread had been found in a back room near the garage.

Nagging Questions

Had her daughter-in-law spent the afternoon with the maid for an alibi? Had hired men gone into the house and killed Ted, leaving behind beer cans and cigarette wrappers? Had they cleaned him up, thrown away his clothes and placed his body in the car?

Her questions only raised more questions.

In 1982, Zelda's latest attorney, Leonard Weinglass, persuaded the coroner's office to conduct an inquest into the Loseff case. Much of the material Zelda gathered became court evidence, and the people she questioned became witnesses.

The coroner's jury came back with a finding that officials consider at best confused: death at the hands of another by carbon monoxide poisoning. In essence, they decided, someone had killed Ted Loseff by exposing him to the exhaust fumes from his own car.





But no murder investigation came until Zelda had hired yet another private investigator to compile a professional report.

On Nov. 7, 1983, Zelda got a letter from the Los Angeles district attorney notifying her that the case was being reopened.

"I was thrilled to pieces," she recalled. The detectives assigned to the case were among the best on the force. One had worked on the Hillside Strangler case. "Thank God, I thought. At last!"

Where Zelda's investigation stemmed from a mother's suspicions, the police inquiry grew out of the original evidence.

Their investigation spanned eight months and included interviews with eight to 10 people, said Lt. Ron Lewis, officer in charge of the Police Department's special homicide section that handles complex murder cases.

"Mrs. Loseff's case is just total speculation, that's all," Lewis said in an interview. "We are all very sympathetic to her. But we cannot prosecute from speculation."

The first thing the detectives discovered was that Zelda's prime suspect, Wilda, had remarried the year after Ted's death, moved back east and died a few months after the inquest.

Police also found certain facts that made them feel that Loseff killed himself after all, Lewis added.

Earlier Suicide Attempt

The door to the garage appeared to have been locked from inside. Loseff had attempted suicide once before, in 1972. Although the belated autopsy suggested foul play, the findings did not preclude suicide. After reviewing the case, Dr. Ronald Kornblum, the current acting coroner, concluded that the findings still indicated suicide. He added that a blood test should have been made in the case, and that such tests are now routine.

"There are obviously a lot of questions that could have been answered during the original investigation that could possibly have precluded any doubt," Lewis said, adding that unless someone confessed, no prosecution seemed possible.

"Unfortunately, 10 years later, we can't do all that because of vague memory of witnesses, lack of physical evidence, and the fact that no blood test was done. Because of the unanswered questions, we have reclassified the death in our own files as 'undetermined.' "

The evidence has been independently reviewed by four members of the district attorney's staff. None found any basis for prosecution.

Her son's death has transformed Zelda Loseff's waning years. She avoids the sight of boats on the ocean; Ted was a sailor. She does not go to opera; Ted enjoyed music.





Her relationship with her daughter, who urges her to get on with her life, has been strained. She lunches often with potential witnesses, and with members of a group called Parents of Murdered Children.

She still wakes up at night, still fights the queasiness when she thinks of Ted's last moments, still types the memos about those elusive clues and files them away.

At the very least, she hopes, laws will be changed so that parents can always see the death records of their children and that the taking of blood samples will be required in suspected suicides.

"If the police think they are through with this little old lady, they're wrong," she said. "I am developing new information all the time. Some beer cans were found in the bushes near the garage that night, and I have a lead on a man who may have been hiding out there."

Wow I haven't seen that one in a long time.

LilMissKryssy- funny, I googled this story and read that exact article just now after seeing the latest Lifetime airing of this episode. I think the thing that stood out the most to me from the article (vs what we learned in the UM segment) is this:

"Ted had worn glasses since age 3. How, Zelda wondered, could he have been reading that magazine that police found in his lap?"
[...]
"Wilda had run up with Ted's glasses as they were taking the body out of the garage, he recalled, and asked him to put them on Ted's face."

I watched this again semi-recently.

I don't know that suicide should be ruled out.

There was a lot about the murder scenario that bothered me.

It was mentioned that an autopsy wasn't performed until several years after the fact.

The "murder" theory pretty much came to the mother in a dream.

The wife's bizarre behavior toward the mother could be a result of a bitter impending divorce (between the wife and Ted) exacerbated by chronic alcohol abuse.

All the beer can found at the scene. Loseff could have consumed the beer himself (even though he rarely drank). He and his wife were on the rocks and a divorce was coming if you believe the statement made to the housekeeper, Mary. Difficult times to be sure. He could have decided to knock back a few and end it all. What better way to end it as painlessly as he did.

He could have vomited from drinking too much and decided to change shirts before killing himself. The shirt he was found in was a dress shirt after all. Maybe he wanted to go out wearing his best.

Obviously, he did write the "suicide note" (as a friend testified) and it was kept around. He could have just used the same note on this occasion.

All good points, but if Loseff committed suicide, how do you explain the phone being busy for 5 hours before finally getting through? Plus the pathologist who performed the autopsy said that Loseff had a violent vomiting episode "moments" before he died. If he was vomiting from the fumes coming from the car or drinking too much, he should have been found with vomit all over him.

All the beer can found at the scene. Loseff could have consumed the beer himself (even though he rarely drank). He and his wife were on the rocks and a divorce was coming if you believe the statement made to the housekeeper, Mary. Difficult times to be sure. He could have decided to knock back a few and end it all. What better way to end it as painlessly as he did.

He could have vomited from drinking too much and decided to change shirts before killing himself. The shirt he was found in was a dress shirt after all. Maybe he wanted to go out wearing his best.

Just re-read the lengthy LA Times article, and was thinking the same. He had attempted suicide prior in 1972, and the garage door was locked from the inside. Although I can't get over the wife's actions that day.

All good points, but if Loseff committed suicide, how do you explain the phone being busy for 5 hours before finally getting through? Plus the pathologist who performed the autopsy said that Loseff had a violent vomiting episode "moments" before he died. If he was vomiting from the fumes coming from the car or drinking too much, he should have been found with vomit all over him.


I think this was a pretty open and shut case (one of the most obvious I've seen) - Wilda did it or had it done, possibly knowing Ted's shaky mental history would make suicide a perfect cover story.

(If she contracted it out though, I would think that in the 40+ years since, at least one hitman would've talked. Contract hitters, at least the ones we've seen on UM, have never been that smart)

I don't know about the credibility of Zel's dream, but I honestly think it was a murder and that Wilda is either directly or indirectly responsible.

If there was more than one person hired by Wilda to kill Ted, it's hard to imagine that neither of them have come forward to talk in exchange for a plea bargain (ratting out the other person in exchange for immunity.)

I can't help but wonder how many of the suicide vs. murder cases featured on UM, where the causes of death were changed from suicide to undetermined, were done solely as an appeasement to the family members pushing law enforcement to investigate the case as a murder. This strikes me as one of those cases. I'm rewatching the segment as I type this, and these are the things that stick out to me:

-The pre-nup agreement. Wilda would essentially get nothing if the marriage ended in divorce. Strong motive for Wilda to want Ted dead.
-Ted's mom initially accepted suicide, which is pretty telling.
-Zel, Ted's mom, became skeptical of the suicide after a dream? WTF?!
-The housekeeper was a witness to a violent argument between Wilda and Ted on the day of his death. After the encounter, Wilda asked the housekeeper if she could go back to her house with her and the housekeeper obliged. Now if this was some elaborate murder plot, what would've happened if the housekeeper said no?
-The housekeeper called the police when she got to her house, and reported that Ted had a gun and was threatening Wilda. The police didn't respond because the housekeeper didn't actually see the gun. Again, if this was some elaborate murder plot designed by Wilda, why would she be okay with potentially introducing the police to the crime scene while Ted could either still be alive, or in the process of being attacked?
-The changing of the clothes is meaningless, IMO. If Loseff was using liquid courage to prime himself up for his suicide (and knowing that he was typically not a drinker), the beer cans, the vomit, and the changing of the clothes does not refute a scenario where Loseff was doing all of that himself in preparation for his suicide.
-The lack of an autopsy on this case is probably the main reason why there are so many questions about Ted's death. If it was performed, it would conclusively say whether or not Loseff had any defensive wounds, or if there were in fact signs of a struggle as envisioned by Zel.
-Not mentioned on UM, but the garage was locked from the inside.
-The suicide note was briefly mentioned in the segment as having been written 2 years prior to Ted's death. Who the hell keeps a suicide note around for 2 years, though?

Definitely leaning towards suicide on this one now. Had an autopsy been performed, even with the oddities with the wife and the potential motive for wanting Ted dead, I still think this would have been more likely than not a suicide.

Definitely leaning towards suicide on this one now. Had an autopsy been performed, even with the oddities with the wife and the potential motive for wanting Ted dead, I still think this would have been more likely than not a suicide.

While I do agree this is not a slam dunk case of murder, I think the evidence points towards murder way more than suicide. The different clothes, the stain/disintegration of the bedding, and the lack of vomit on the body (remember they said he would have had a violent episode just before death) are two things that stick out to me. I think his mom just took it at face value and then only later started putting it all together. (I do admit the dream part is a serious "WTF?" moment.) I also agree that he was probably prone to suicide, but I think his ex-wife used that against him.

Always thought this one was more likely a murder than a suicide mainly for the reasons Todd already described, and the fact that Ted Loseff was an orthopedic surgeon. If that man wanted to kill himself efficiently and effectively, he would know how to do it. I submit he would suck it up, cut major arteries and bleed out in a hot bathtub, or start an IV and push overdoses of anesthetic drugs. I highly doubt he would go vomiting and suffering needlessly in any fashion. That's just kind of how docs tend to do it when they decide to commit suicide. Albeit an autopsy was never performed, but I just can't see something that would clearly indicate Loseff probably had a hand in his own death not being screamed from the mountaintops by Wilda's defense team.

Wilda didn't need a financial motive to kill Ted. She had substance abuse problems of her own and the relationship was reportedly quite volatile to begin with. Perhaps she just wanted the dude dead because she resented him.

As to Wilda's actions during the crime and subsequent investigation--such as banking on the housekeeper taking her home or introducing the police into the crime scene, she was an alcoholic and a drug abuser. They frequently do some seemingly unclever things, especially when it comes to covering up things they don't want revealed.

I just have a hard time rectifying what exactly Loseff's assailants were doing in the subsequent events of the attack. The theory is they came in through an unlocked back door, attacked him and forced him to drink poison, changed him, rearranged the garage before staging the scene and setting it up to look like a suicide. So why were the beer cans and empty glasses found around the kitchen? Did these guys hang around the house after killing him? Downing several beers and mixed drinks would take a considerate amount of time, why would they risk hanging around after Loseff was already dead? And how did they get so lucky as to find a suicide note written by Loseff 2 years prior (one that he also decided to keep for some odd reason)? Granted this happened in 1974, and the assailants wouldn't worry about DNA or any other forensic evidence being left behind, but why would they risk leaving their fingerprints behind on the beer cans, glasses, or anywhere in the house?

I just have a hard time rectifying what exactly Loseff's assailants were doing in the subsequent events of the attack. The theory is they came in through an unlocked back door, attacked him and forced him to drink poison, changed him, rearranged the garage before staging the scene and setting it up to look like a suicide. So why were the beer cans and empty glasses found around the kitchen? Did these guys hang around the house after killing him? Downing several beers and mixed drinks would take a considerate amount of time, why would they risk hanging around after Loseff was already dead? And how did they get so lucky as to find a suicide note written by Loseff 2 years prior (one that he also decided to keep for some odd reason)? Granted this happened in 1974, and the assailants wouldn't worry about DNA or any other forensic evidence being left behind, but why would they risk leaving their fingerprints behind on the beer cans, glasses, or anywhere in the house?


I could see a scenario where they hung out in the house both to leave under the cover of darkness and to further entrench the wife's alibi. The binge drinking is dumb as hell, but it sounds like the police were as well and it cancelled out.

-The housekeeper was a witness to a violent argument between Wilda and Ted on the day of his death. After the encounter, Wilda asked the housekeeper if she could go back to her house with her and the housekeeper obliged. Now if this was some elaborate murder plot, what would've happened if the housekeeper said no?


"You're fired"




-Not mentioned on UM, but the garage was locked from the inside.



Most garages have multiple entrances, and depending on the type of lock on one of those doors it could have been the type that you can lock before you close it shut.



For me, it's all about the phone. Until someone can explain what put the phone back on the hook then someone was there and it's a murder.

I just have a hard time rectifying what exactly Loseff's assailants were doing in the subsequent events of the attack. The theory is they came in through an unlocked back door, attacked him and forced him to drink poison, changed him, rearranged the garage before staging the scene and setting it up to look like a suicide. So why were the beer cans and empty glasses found around the kitchen? Did these guys hang around the house after killing him? Downing several beers and mixed drinks would take a considerate amount of time, why would they risk hanging around after Loseff was already dead? And how did they get so lucky as to find a suicide note written by Loseff 2 years prior (one that he also decided to keep for some odd reason)? Granted this happened in 1974, and the assailants wouldn't worry about DNA or any other forensic evidence being left behind, but why would they risk leaving their fingerprints behind on the beer cans, glasses, or anywhere in the house?

I think having Loseff ingest poison is a very unusual way for a couple or more assailants to kill him, and I'm not sure I think that's what happened myself.

The assailants could have incapacitated Ted (who may have vomited for any number of reasons during a struggle) and placed him in the vehicle to actually die of carbon monoxide poisoning, which would have taken some time and required one or more of those assailants to remain in the home. I don't recall if the cause of Loseff's death was ever actually mentioned in the segment. The beer cans and glasses may have also been a continuation of the staged suicide scene, not necessarily an indication that the assailants were just chilling at the house.

The assailants could have incapacitated Ted (who may have vomited for any number of reasons during a struggle) and placed him in the vehicle to actually die of carbon monoxide poisoning, which would have taken some time and required one or more of those assailants to remain in the home. I don't recall if the cause of Loseff's death was ever actually mentioned in the segment. The beer cans and glasses may have also been a continuation of the staged suicide scene, not necessarily an indication that the assailants were just chilling at the house.

According to the lengthy LA Times article posted earlier in this thread, based off of an autopsy performed years after Loseff's death, a coroner's jury determined that he died from "death at the hands of another by carbon monoxide poisoning", which is weird. When the then acting coroner reviewed the case, even given the information from the coroner's jury, he still concluded suicide.

I just have a hard time rectifying what exactly Loseff's assailants were doing in the subsequent events of the attack. The theory is they came in through an unlocked back door, attacked him and forced him to drink poison, changed him, rearranged the garage before staging the scene and setting it up to look like a suicide. So why were the beer cans and empty glasses found around the kitchen? Did these guys hang around the house after killing him? Downing several beers and mixed drinks would take a considerate amount of time, why would they risk hanging around after Loseff was already dead? And how did they get so lucky as to find a suicide note written by Loseff 2 years prior (one that he also decided to keep for some odd reason)? Granted this happened in 1974, and the assailants wouldn't worry about DNA or any other forensic evidence being left behind, but why would they risk leaving their fingerprints behind on the beer cans, glasses, or anywhere in the house?

An unstable alcoholic like Wilda wouldn't necessarily be the best judge of character and probably didn't hire Navy SEAL-level hitmen. The ones that killed Ted could've been (and most likely were) pretty sloppy.

This is also a stretch, but Wilda could've saved that suicide note too. As you said, she'd get nothing in a divorce. With things being as rocky as they were, she could've foreseen the likely outcome and could've possibly planned things out well in advance.

One thing that stands in the way of the suicide still (to me) are those comments by the pathologist you mentioned. Ted killing himself comes into direct conflict with the supposed timing of his violent vomiting spell - he wouldn't have had time to clean all that up before he died (or, considering the possibility he could've vomited into a toilet, it would've been impossible for him to stagger from whatever bathroom he was in, out to the garage and into his car).

An unstable alcoholic like Wilda wouldn't necessarily be the best judge of character and probably didn't hire Navy SEAL-level hitmen. The ones that killed Ted could've been (and most likely were) pretty sloppy.

We are also forgetting that this alleged intricate murder plot relies on a very overlooked (and glossed over in the segment) detail: knowing that the housekeeper was going to be out of the house early that day thereby giving Wilda a potential alibi. In her sworn testimony, she says that Loseff told her at 10:00 in the morning on the day of his death, that he and Wilda were divorcing and she wasn't going to be living there anymore. Then at 2 in the afternoon, Wilda shows up and she and Loseff get into a violent argument, and the housekeeper basically quit on the spot:

And I said, ‘If you want me to continue to work with you, you’ll have to talk to my husband.’ So he paid me for my work, and I got in my car and I drove down the street, and there was Mrs. Loseff. And then she asked me if she could go with me, and I said, ‘Well, yes,’ and then I drove home. She kept insisting that Dr. Loseff had a gun. So I called the police. They told me that they couldn’t go over there if I hadn’t seen a gun, and I hadn’t seen it.

Wilda sure was relying on an awful lot of assumptions that day, if the plan was to murder Loseff. Involving assailants, staging the scene, staying with the housekeeper for an alibi, etc. are all hallmarks of a premeditated murder. If Wilda was away from the house already when the housekeeper arrived at work, why even bother showing back up at the house knowing that Ted's going to be killed there shortly? Why not make her presence known at a bar or other public place to establish an alibi before returning home and "discovering" Ted?

What put the phone on the hook?

What put the phone on the hook?

Ted Loseff. The housekeeper was retelling this story of what happened that day 4 years after the fact. She could've been off on her estimates as well as how many times she tried to reach Ted. According to the LA Times article, Wilda called the police that night to meet her at the house and escort her inside because she was fearful of Ted. There is no mention of the phone calls placed by the housekeeper.

We are also forgetting that this alleged intricate murder plot relies on a very overlooked (and glossed over in the segment) detail: knowing that the housekeeper was going to be out of the house early that day thereby giving Wilda a potential alibi. In her sworn testimony, she says that Loseff told her at 10:00 in the morning on the day of his death, that he and Wilda were divorcing and she wasn't going to be living there anymore. Then at 2 in the afternoon, Wilda shows up and she and Loseff get into a violent argument, and the housekeeper basically quit on the spot:



Wilda sure was relying on an awful lot of assumptions that day, if the plan was to murder Loseff. Involving assailants, staging the scene, staying with the housekeeper for an alibi, etc. are all hallmarks of a premeditated murder. If Wilda was away from the house already when the housekeeper arrived at work, why even bother showing back up at the house knowing that Ted's going to be killed there shortly? Why not make her presence known at a bar or other public place to establish an alibi before returning home and "discovering" Ted?


Good point. About the only thing I could offer up there is that she clearly didn't know what she was doing (and didn't have the foresight to take care of such a contingency).

All she knew was that she was eventually going to get screwed in the inevitable divorce and to avoid that, Ted needed to disappear. I think she tried too hard/too much to paint Ted as the bad guy and/or unstable so that the authorities would conclude this was a suicide (a fight in front of the housekeeper helping that along). Once they did, that was good enough for her.

If Wilda was away from the house already when the housekeeper arrived at work, why even bother showing back up at the house knowing that Ted's going to be killed there shortly? Why not make her presence known at a bar or other public place to establish an alibi before returning home and "discovering" Ted?

I would say coming back and engaging in the argument with Ted and then claiming he had a gun, all with the housekeeper there, could be a concerted attempt to create a witness on Wilda's part. I mean, the housekeeper felt concerned enough to call the cops after seeing that argument.

Which begs an interesting question: why would Wilda allow her to make a phone call to the police knowing some dudes are supposed to be at the house pulling off a murder and risk them being discovered?

I still think Dr. Loseff probably didn't kill himself, but I can definitely see how the "UM version of events" doesn't satisfy a lot of good questions.

Which begs an interesting question: why would Wilda allow her to make a phone call to the police knowing some dudes are supposed to be at the house pulling off a murder and risk them being discovered?

This is what made me question the murder scenario more than anything implied in the segment. I also think that this argument was more hostile and violent than led on in the UM segment. It scared the housekeeper into quitting right there on the spot. And that was after Loseff had informed her that Wilda wasn't going to be around anymore and that they were getting a divorce. I just feel a bit weird judging someone (in this case Wilda) as a potential mastermind in a murder plot, when all we got in the segment was a very slanted and biased source of information (Loseff's mom). Especially in light of how much we now know UM tended to leave a ton of information out of their segments.

Cars, you raise some good points. However, here are some of the things from the LA Times article that I can't get past that make suicide less likely:

[Ted] drove his Cadillac into his garage on Saturday afternoon, Feb. 23, 1974, and sat reading Time magazine until the exhaust fumes finally overcame him... Ted had worn glasses since age 3. How, Zelda wondered, could he have been reading that magazine that police found in his lap?... Wilda had run up with Ted's glasses as they were taking the body out of the garage, he recalled, and asked him to put them on Ted's face.

If Ted needed glasses since age 3, he probably had a pretty heavy prescription (meaning he was probably very limited it what he could see without his glasses). People with that type of prescription don't go ANYWHERE without their glasses. They need them to function. So Ted somehow went to a dark garage, rigged up everything, and sat reading a magazine without glasses? No way.

Also, Wilda running up to put the glasses on his face is horribly bizarre/disturbing. Why would she care what a dead person was wearing at that point? Unless she thought it would look funny for him to be found without his glasses, too...

The coroner's report was even briefer. No autopsy had been done. No blood had been taken to confirm that her son had died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

I think it is very clear that the police did a half-assed investigation here. Granted forensics weren't the same back then, but by not doing a blood test they screwed the pooch. I think it looked like suicide and Wilda told them it was a suicide, so they said open and shut case and walked away. A blood test would have proven this one way or another. They could have also determined whether or not Ted was conscious when he was in the garage based on the CO content in his blood.

His wife returned about 2:30 p.m. They argued. She ran out and spent the afternoon at the maid's house, saying she was afraid to go back. Finally, after dark, she called police to meet her at the house and escort her inside. After police found the house empty, Wilda suggested they look in the garage. The suggestion seemed "strange," one policeman would say later. But they looked anyway. They found Ted's body in his car.

If all accounts are true, the garage was full of junk and almost never used. Why would Wilda suggest they go look there? Even the cops on scene thought that sounded odd.

Wilda told police that Ted had a history of suicide attempts. What appeared to be a suicide note scribbled on a cardboard shirt collar insert was found on an upstairs dresser: "Wilda--All I ever asked was one moment's compassion and understanding. I love you. T."... Loseff had attempted suicide once before, in 1972. Although the belated autopsy suggested foul play, the findings did not preclude suicide. After reviewing the case, Dr. Ronald Kornblum, the current acting coroner, concluded that the findings still indicated suicide. He added that a blood test should have been made in the case, and that such tests are now routine.

So he did have one previous suicide attempt. However, Wilda seems to have painted a "history of suicide attempts." I think Wilda wanted Ted out of her life and saw this as an easy way to do it and cover it up.

Ted Loseff didn't drink beer or smoke. Yet beer cans and cigarette packages--brands Zelda later learned were favored by certain of Wilda's friends--were found in the kitchen.

If he truly didn't drink or smoke, then were did this come from? A despondent man is suddenly going to start smoking in his final hour? I highly doubt that. Funny the brands just happened to be those used by Wilda's friends.

Ted was a fashionable dresser, yet he was found wearing a pair of old summer slacks and his best dress shirt with French cuffs. The clothes the maid had seen him wearing that morning were never found.

The fact that he had an odd combination of clothes isn't that weird to me. However, the fact they never found his other clothes jumps way out to me. If Ted had a violent vomiting episode, why would he need to destroy or hide his clothes? A suicidal man doesn't do that. Why would he care? This definitely sounds like he was vomiting and then cleaned up and put in the first clothes someone found in the closet and took the soiled clothes with them. I'm sure they didn't want his clothes found with vomit (and poison?) all over them. They probably thought no one would notice. If Ted had got sick all on his own, then why not throw the clothes in the washer, the hamper, or just leave them laying out?

In 1978, Zelda got a court order to exhume her son's body. The resulting autopsy, conducted by Dr. Irving Root of San Bernardino, turned up the first physical evidence in her case. Accurate forensic tests were impossible under such circumstances, Root said. But he did make one important finding: There was evidence of vomit in the deepest recesses of the lungs, suggesting a violent vomiting episode at death. If no vomit had been found on his clothing, Root surmised, his clothes might have been changed.

Again, we know he had a violent vomiting episode prior to his death, yet he had none on him. While it is possible to aspirate vomit while conscious, it is definitely more likely from someone who is unconscious and/or laying down when the vomiting happens. So we are to assume Ted got violently ill, then changed his clothes, and then went out to the garage (without his glasses) to read a magazine and kill himself?

The door to the garage appeared to have been locked from inside.
The key word here is "appeared." If it is like most garage door locks of that era, it could have been locked and then pulled shut. But even if it wasn't, it just says "appeared" meaning it wasn't like he threw an internal deadbolt that definitely couldn't have been closed from the outside. To me, this is just the cops trying to cover up after the fact and make the suicide scenario fit.

Again, I'm not saying this was murder 100%. But based on the information above, there are things that I can't get easily past that point to murder. My guess is that he was murdered, but since there is no real, definitive evidence showing it, the cops weren't going to touch it. Couple that with the fact the most likely suspect was dead not that long after, and I think the cops just wanted it to all go away. Since there is no smoking gun, all we are left with is a whole lot of circumstantial evidence. That alone wasn't going to make them look to hard in this case.

If Ted needed glasses since age 3, he probably had a pretty heavy prescription (meaning he was probably very limited it what he could see without his glasses). People with that type of prescription don't go ANYWHERE without their glasses. They need them to function. So Ted somehow went to a dark garage, rigged up everything, and sat reading a magazine without glasses? No way.

That comes from the friend who says that Wilda asked him to put the glasses on Ted as they were taking him out of the garage. Nothing is mentioned in the UM segment (which was filmed after the article was written), and the segment shows Loseff being found with his glasses on. Perhaps he had 2 pairs? His usual pair and a pair of reading glasses? The friend finds it odd (which it sort of is) that Wilda comes to him and tells him to put the glasses on, and the mother seizes that as evidence that he didn't have glasses on while sitting in the garage. It really could go either way, IMO.

Also, Wilda running up to put the glasses on his face is horribly bizarre/disturbing. Why would she care what a dead person was wearing at that point? Unless she thought it would look funny for him to be found without his glasses, too...

Eh, not really. If he killed himself, Wilda had every right to be hysterical at that point. And it wasn't immediately after she died, but my mother did the same thing with my grandmother's glasses. It was more or less just a way for her to be buried as everyone remembered her.

I think it is very clear that the police did a half-assed investigation here. Granted forensics weren't the same back then, but by not doing a blood test they screwed the pooch. I think it looked like suicide and Wilda told them it was a suicide, so they said open and shut case and walked away. A blood test would have proven this one way or another. They could have also determined whether or not Ted was conscious when he was in the garage based on the CO content in his blood.

The blood tests weren't standard back then. Either way, had they done a blood test which determined he died from carbon monoxide poisoning, everything else about the case would remain the same. Had there been no defensive wounds, no abrasions, etc. would Wilda and the glasses, the beer, the cigarettes, etc. still look suspicious and be further proof as evidence of murder?

If all accounts are true, the garage was full of junk and almost never used. Why would Wilda suggest they go look there? Even the cops on scene thought that sounded odd.

Maybe that's where Loseff tried to kill himself the first time? The LA Times article makes it seem like his sister accepted the suicide ruling, and that his mother's quest seemed to put a damper on their relationship.

So he did have one previous suicide attempt. However, Wilda seems to have painted a "history of suicide attempts." I think Wilda wanted Ted out of her life and saw this as an easy way to do it and cover it up.

Maybe.

Why that particular day though? She had ample time to murder him and set it up to look like a suicide, if that note found was in fact from his first attempt in 1972.

If he truly didn't drink or smoke, then were did this come from? A despondent man is suddenly going to start smoking in his final hour? I highly doubt that. Funny the brands just happened to be those used by Wilda's friends.

The segment said he rarely drank. And in the pictures featured throughout the segment, he's holding cigars. So he did smoke. Wouldn't be much of a stretch to say on the verge of contemplating suicide, he decided to smoke some cigarettes too.

The fact that he had an odd combination of clothes isn't that weird to me. However, the fact they never found his other clothes jumps way out to me. If Ted had a violent vomiting episode, why would he need to destroy or hide his clothes? A suicidal man doesn't do that. Why would he care? This definitely sounds like he was vomiting and then cleaned up and put in the first clothes someone found in the closet and took the soiled clothes with them. I'm sure they didn't want his clothes found with vomit (and poison?) all over them. They probably thought no one would notice. If Ted had got sick all on his own, then why not throw the clothes in the washer, the hamper, or just leave them laying out?

Yeah the missing clothes is odd. But it could be inaccurate information. For all we know, Wilda could've dumped them (not in an attempt to cover anything up) after his death, and then when his valuables were turned over to his mother, these clothes were not among them, and that was seen as further evidence of some cover up. Really could have been nothing more than seeing vomit on clothes and throwing them away instead of washing them.

So we are to assume Ted got violently ill, then changed his clothes, and then went out to the garage (without his glasses) to read a magazine and kill himself?

I think this is likely. He gets drunk, and he's a very infrequent drinker, so he gets sick and pukes. He changes his clothes, maybe his glasses, and goes out to his garage to finally off himself. His wife was divorcing him, his housekeeper just quit on him, and he had a history of issues prior.

Again, I'm not saying this was murder 100%. But based on the information above, there are things that I can't get easily past that point to murder. My guess is that he was murdered, but since there is no real, definitive evidence showing it, the cops weren't going to touch it. Couple that with the fact the most likely suspect was dead not that long after, and I think the cops just wanted it to all go away. Since there is no smoking gun, all we are left with is a whole lot of circumstantial evidence. That alone wasn't going to make them look to hard in this case.

I'll have to say that this case is one of the few murder/suicide segments featured on UM where it could really go either way. But even despite their not being a blood test done initially, when his body was exhumed 4 years after his death, and an autopsy was done officially, it was still ruled a suicide. Which is what I lean towards too.

The only thing I find suspect about the murder scenario, about the garage, is that if it was filled with stuff where did it all go?

The Ted Loseff death is one of the many of those apparent suicides featured on UM that could very well be what it looks like, a suicide.

I know TL's mother didn't want to believe this & felt that he was killed (by someone recruited by his wife), but I'm not sure if that's what happened.

The vomit found (by the housekeeper) on a cloth in another part of the house could just mean that TL got sick there, but then later went to the garage.

This segment as well as the John Branion and Michael Rosenblum segments just dragged on forever. Along with a couple of historical stories like Huey Long and RFK, they must be the slowest in the history of the series until the current reboot. I have to skip over all of them every time they come up. These could have been told in less than half the time. They dragged on for no reason. If you can keep the content compelling to justify the length, that's wonderful. Unfortunately that wasn't the case.

I wish they had more info on some of the classic Lost Heirs in order to stretch out those stories. That would have been nice.

I love the Huey Long segment.

I think this was a pretty clear cut case of murder involving Ted's wife. Now to what level her involvement was, I have no clue. As has been mentioned, she could have arranged for him to be killed or done it herself but I highly doubt he killed himself based purely on all of the evidence and circumstantial evidence.

Obvious suicide. The murder plot just sounds ridiculous

Obvious suicide. The murder plot just sounds ridiculous

Care to elaborate?

Obvious suicide. The murder plot just sounds ridiculous

The biggest knock on the murder theory is where did all of the clutter go that was inside the garage? Also, the entire premise about the garage was brought about from Ted's mother's dream. I had forgotten about that.

W/O know Loseff's mental state it's impossible to completely rule out suicide. However, his wife's suicide after evidence was found possibly implicating her in his death, makes his death being a murder a possibility.

For this to have been a "hit" though, this would have taken the work of a skilled killer that apparently can keep his/her mouth shut. There aren't many of them and their services would cost quite a bit. How did Mrs. Loseff pay the killer?

I lean towards Mrs. Loseff giving her husband something and then leaving him in his vehicle w/ the engine running. That explains the lack of a traceable payment to a killer.

Criminals love people like you. This was clearly a murder even to a blind man.

Exactly. The housekeeper kept trying to get ahold of Loseff for about 8 hours but kept getting a busy signal when she called the house. IIRC, Loseff was dead during this time. Then after 8 hours, the phone began to ring. Zel knew that Ted was going to be murdered during that time period. The phone being hung up was the way to let her know it was over, IMO.

Zel was his mother, not his wife. The killer was Wilda.

I watched this again semi-recently.

I don't know that suicide should be ruled out.

There was a lot about the murder scenario that bothered me.

It was mentioned that an autopsy wasn't performed until several years after the fact.

The "murder" theory pretty much came to the mother in a dream.

The wife's bizarre behavior toward the mother could be a result of a bitter impending divorce (between the wife and Ted) exacerbated by chronic alcohol abuse.

All the beer can found at the scene. Loseff could have consumed the beer himself (even though he rarely drank). He and his wife were on the rocks and a divorce was coming if you believe the statement made to the housekeeper, Mary. Difficult times to be sure. He could have decided to knock back a few and end it all. What better way to end it as painlessly as he did.

He could have vomited from drinking too much and decided to change shirts before killing himself. The shirt he was found in was a dress shirt after all. Maybe he wanted to go out wearing his best.

Obviously, he did write the "suicide note" (as a friend testified) and it was kept around. He could have just used the same note on this occasion.


That's ridiculous.

I watched this again semi-recently.

I don't know that suicide should be ruled out.

There was a lot about the murder scenario that bothered me.

It was mentioned that an autopsy wasn't performed until several years after the fact.

The "murder" theory pretty much came to the mother in a dream.

The wife's bizarre behavior toward the mother could be a result of a bitter impending divorce (between the wife and Ted) exacerbated by chronic alcohol abuse.

All the beer can found at the scene. Loseff could have consumed the beer himself (even though he rarely drank). He and his wife were on the rocks and a divorce was coming if you believe the statement made to the housekeeper, Mary. Difficult times to be sure. He could have decided to knock back a few and end it all. What better way to end it as painlessly as he did.

He could have vomited from drinking too much and decided to change shirts before killing himself. The shirt he was found in was a dress shirt after all. Maybe he wanted to go out wearing his best.

Obviously, he did write the "suicide note" (as a friend testified) and it was kept around. He could have just used the same note on this occasion.

Not ridiculous at all.

It was definitely a suicide.

That's ridiculous.

Why don’t you put forward the reasons you disagree along with some evidence, instead of just insulting posts and posters? We’re not Reddit.