810 N. Linden Dr., Beverly Hills, CA 90210
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Author: Jewls Krueger
On the night of June 20, 1947, infamous mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel was shot and killed inside the Beverly Hills home of his girlfriend Virginia Hill. The 41 year old gangster, often credited as the father of modern Las Vegas, was sitting on a sofa reading the Los Angeles Times when a gunman fired several rifle rounds through the front window.
The murder remains officially unsolved, although it is widely believed to have been ordered by Siegel's own mob associates over financial disputes related to his lavish Las Vegas casino, the Flamingo.
Bugsy Siegal - Creative Commons: KirkAndreas
Benjamin Siegel was born February 28, 1906 in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up in the slums of the Lower East Side and rose through the ranks of organized crime alongside childhood friend Meyer Lansky and Charles "Lucky" Luciano. By his early 20s, he was a feared enforcer in the national crime syndicate, and he hated his nickname "Bugsy," which referred to his short tempered, "crazy as a bedbug" reputation.
In the late 1930s, the syndicate sent Siegel west to oversee mob operations in California. He cultivated a glamorous Hollywood lifestyle, befriending stars like George Raft, Cary Grant, and Jean Harlow. He also began a high profile affair with socialite and mob courier Virginia Hill.
By the mid 1940s, Siegel had taken over the construction of the Flamingo Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, originally a project of Hollywood Reporter publisher Billy Wilkerson. The casino opened in December 1946 wildly over budget at roughly $6 million, with much of the money coming from the syndicate. Whispers had begun that Siegel and Hill were skimming construction funds.
Virginia Hill rented a Spanish style home at 810 North Linden Drive in Beverly Hills, just a few blocks south of Sunset Boulevard. Siegel stayed there frequently when he was in Los Angeles, and was using the home as a base in the spring and summer of 1947.
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In June 1947, Hill had flown to Paris after a heated argument with Siegel, leaving the Linden Drive home in the care of her brother Chick Hill and his girlfriend Jerri Mason.
On the evening of June 20, 1947, Siegel returned to the home after a day spent at the barbershop, his attorney's office, and dinner at Jack's at the Beach restaurant in Ocean Park with friend Allen Smiley. The two men sat down on a chintz patterned sofa in the living room around 10:30 p.m. to read the early edition of the next day's Los Angeles Times.
Moments later, a gunman standing in the dark on a rose covered pergola just outside the front window fired nine rounds from a .30 caliber M1 carbine through the window. Siegel was struck multiple times in the head and chest and died instantly. Smiley, sitting just inches away, was unharmed.
Police arrived to find Siegel's body slumped on the couch, the newspaper still in his lap. The killing made front page headlines across the country. At nearly the exact same moment, in Las Vegas, three of Siegel's associates walked into the Flamingo and announced they were taking over the casino's operations, a coincidence that has long fueled the belief that the murder was a coordinated syndicate hit.
Further Reading
Despite an extensive investigation by the Beverly Hills Police Department and the FBI, no one was ever arrested or charged with Siegel's murder. Many theories have circulated over the decades. The most widely accepted is that the hit was ordered by the East Coast syndicate over the Flamingo's losses and suspicions that Siegel and Virginia Hill had been embezzling from the project. Mob hitman Eddie Cannizzaro and former mob accountant Mathew "Moose" Pandza have both been named in different accounts as possible shooters, but neither was ever charged.
Virginia Hill went into seclusion in Europe after the murder. She died of an apparent suicide by sleeping pills in Austria in March 1966. Siegel was buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, with only five family members in attendance.
The home at 810 North Linden Drive still stands today on a quiet, tree lined residential street in the "flats" of Beverly Hills, just south of Sunset Boulevard and a few blocks west of Whittier Drive. The Spanish revival home was built in 1928 and originally listed at roughly 5,500 square feet on a lot of about half an acre. It has been renovated and expanded several times since the 1940s.
In recent decades, the home has changed hands multiple times. It was reportedly listed for sale in 2018 for $17 million. It remains a private residence today.
Please be respectful of the current owners and the surrounding neighborhood, stay on public sidewalks at all times, and do not trespass under any circumstances.
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