My name is Diane Wells, and I did not murder my husband. The date is November 5, 1953, and I have decided to write down what happened today, though I can barely remember most of it. I feel like I have been through a brainwashing.
The police and a US Marshal were waiting for me when I got off the plane at Seattle last night. They said that I was under arrest, but wouldn’t tell me why. Newspapermen were there too, and they wanted photographs, like I was some sort of movie star. But then they started shouting questions: “Did you kill Cecil?” “Where’s the money?” “Where’s Johnny?”
I didn’t understand what was happening, and I was crying, and I couldn’t see the lawyer Cecil’s family had got for me. And then we were in the car, and I realized I had left my luggage on the carousel. Thank goodness Mark didn’t wake up. He had slept in my arms all the way from Fairbanks.
The rest of the day, I was hustled from office to court and back again. They told me that Johnny Warren, the jazz musician, had also been charged with Cecil’s murder. My lawyer asked how it was possible for two people to have pulled the trigger.
“Johnny left town, and was arrested in Oakland, California,” said one of the detectives, as if that was the answer. Then he asked if I had ever been “intimate” with Johnny. I had told everyone that I didn’t even know Johnny, and that it was just gossip if anyone said I did. Fairbanks is a very small town.
I was happily married, I said. Cecil could be difficult after a few martinis, but he looked after Mark and I, and as long as I had dinner ready and looked my best at social events, we were no different from many other families that I knew.
But they said “So what? Johnny was married. And you’re a very attractive woman.” One of the detectives, who stank of whiskey even though it wasn’t noon, leaned too close to me and said: “Can’t be many like you up there in the snow.”
God, I hope Johnny didn’t keep those letters.
Outside, Mark was playing with some of the police officers. He thought it was all a big game. I was glad he couldn’t hear some of the things they were saying about me.
My lawyer paid the $5,000 bail, and told me I was a very lucky girl. He had arranged it so that Mark and I could fly back to Fairbanks with no US Marshal, but then Johnny and I would have to “face the music.”
Someone laughed at that joke. I didn’t.
It seems like I have told the story a thousand times by now: I was woken up by a noise, and I saw two men had broken into our apartment. One of them hit me over the head, and I saw stars. The last thing I remember was hearing a gunshot.
We leave on the midnight plane.
The Alaskan Blonde: Sex, Secrets, and the Hollywood Story that Shocked America
Genre: True Crime
Release: March 2022
Purchase Link
Nicknamed “the most beautiful woman in Alaska,” 31-year-old Diane Wells was bruised and bloodied when she screamed for help in the early hours of October 17, 1953. Her husband Cecil, a wealthy businessman, had been shot dead, and she claimed they were victims of a brutal home invasion.
Police were immediately suspicious of her account, and the investigation quickly turned toward her alleged lover, jazz musician Johnny Warren, who had left town the night of the murder. Such a scandalous crime in far-off territorial Alaska led to Life, Newsweek, Jet and pulp detective magazines covering the case, but it also hit the headlines in newspapers across the world.
Nearly 70 years later, journalist James T. Bartlett examines the FBI files, uncovers new evidence, interviews surviving family members, and reveals the story behind what is known as “the most notorious and baffling murder in the history of Fairbanks.”
Meet the author
Originally from London, James T. Bartlett is a travel, lifestyle and history journalist who has written for the Los Angeles Times, BBC, Real Crime, Ripperologist Magazine, Atlas Obscura and History Ireland, among others.
His Gourmet Ghosts alternative guides led to appearances on “Ghost Adventures” and “The UnXplained”, and inspired true crime book The Alaskan Blonde: Sex, Secrets, and the Hollywood Story that Shocked America.
You can find out more information at gourmetghosts.com and thealaskanblonde.com.
All comments are welcomed.
I know I’m prejudiced, but even so, Diane Wells is a fascinating figure and the 50s world makes this book compelling.
And it all happened because you felt it was a story that I should write; that it really should be told. If nothing else, I hope the family members and friends get some closure, even if it’s decades later, because almost no one I talked to knew what happened, or even had the full facts – it just wasn’t talked about or was brushed aside at the time.
That sounds so interesting!
Thanks Alicia, it really was: more than I expected when I first heard about it. Most striking to me was that if this crime happened today, albeit nearly 70 years later, the knee-jerk reaction to it would be the same – and condemnation and judgement made more quickly by social media, rather than the newspapers of the time. There would be more advocates and understanding for Diane, but even so.
This looks fascinating! Congrats, James.
Thanks Ellen!
Waiting eagerly for my copy to arrive at my local bookstore! Can’t wait to read this!
Sounds like a fascinating story.
Thanks Sharon – it really is (though I would say that, of course). Seriously though, as soon as I read the first newspaper report about it, I thought: “I want to read the book about this…”