Los Feliz, the house of the murders

In short
On December 6, 1959, cardiologist Harold Perelson killed his wife Lillian in their mansion at 2475 Glendower Place, in Los Feliz (Los Angeles), attacked his eldest daughter and then took his own life. The house was bought a year later by the Enriquez couple, who never moved in: for over 50 years it stood empty, full of furniture and objects, becoming the “Los Feliz Murder Mansion”. In 2016 it sold for nearly $2.3 million.

On December 6, 1959, a terrible tragedy took place in the mansion at 2475 Glendower Place, in the wealthy Los Angeles neighborhood of Los Feliz.

The story of the Los Feliz murder-suicide

The Spanish Revival mansion had been built in 1925 on the hill near Griffith Park, with a spectacular view of the city. Three floors, five bedrooms and over 5,000 square feet: a house fit for a movie star. In the 1950s cardiologist Harold Perelson moved in with his wife Lillian and their three children.

At 4:30 in the morning on December 6, 1959, Harold killed his wife Lillian in her sleep, striking her on the head with a hammer.

Then he went into the room of his eighteen-year-old daughter Judye and tried to kill her too. But the first blow failed, the girl woke up and started screaming:

Don’t kill me!

Her father told her to lie still and stop screaming, but Judye managed to escape, injured, and ran to raise the alarm at the neighbors’. One of them later said the front door was covered in blood.

Meanwhile Harold saw his two younger children, Joel, 13, and Debbie, 11, in the hallway, woken by the screams. He told them to go back to bed, because what they had heard was just a nightmare. Shortly afterwards he took his own life, before the police arrived.

Possible causes

Harold’s act remains partly a mystery, but according to accounts at the time the Perelsons had serious money problems. It is said that a colleague had taken the rights to a medical device in which Harold had invested a lot of money: a legal battle followed, which Harold won, but he recovered only part of what he had spent.

Two years before the tragedy, Judye and her siblings had also been involved in a car accident. Harold sued the driver responsible and won, but the compensation barely covered the medical bills.

Harold had been going through a period of severe psychological distress, and the family was considering having him admitted to a psychiatric hospital. To keep up appearances, though, they told friends he had heart problems and would be hospitalized for tests. Shortly before that night, Judye had written to her aunt, confiding that her parents had serious financial problems.

A house frozen in time

After the tragedy the three children were taken in by relatives and the mansion stood empty. A year later it was sold at auction to a couple, Emily and Julian Enriquez, who furnished some rooms but, so the story goes, never moved in and used it as storage. When they died the house passed to their son Rudy, who kept using it the same way, hardly making any repairs.

It was said that the Perelsons’ Christmas decorations were still inside, and even the Christmas tree with the wrapped presents.

The mansion became extremely famous: for decades onlookers and ghost hunters climbed the hill, taking photos from outside and sometimes even inside. Although you could see 1950s furniture, an old TV and some wrapping paper, the Christmas tree was never seen. The objects most likely belonged to the Enriquez family, not the Perelsons. In 2009 the Los Angeles Times ran a long article on the house that fed the legend, while the neighbors, tired of night-time visitors, saw it as just an old abandoned house.

The mansion today

Rudy Enriquez died in 2015 with no children and the mansion went on sale for the first time in over 50 years, for $2.75 million. Before the sale the objects inside were removed. In 2016 the house was bought by a couple for nearly $2.3 million, and in the following years the interior was taken down to the studs to be renovated.

So, after more than half a century, the Los Feliz “murder house” has lost its time capsule look. But for many Angelenos it will always be the house where, one December night in 1959, everything stopped.

🦋 Emadion lives through its readers. If this story kept you up at night, buy me a coffee: it helps me bring you the next nightmare.

☕ Support Emadion on Ko-fi