3h 30min, dec 30, 1968 y - Marina Elizabeth Habe

Description:

17yo; Marina left her mother's home in LA on Dec. 29 at ~4:30pm to meet with her date, John Hornburg (22yo), at his family's house at 13326 Sunset Blvd in Brentwood, CA. The Hornburgs were close friends of Marina's family at the time.

The pair then left Hornburg's home and at ~8:30pm met with two other couples -- Laurie Kramer (18yo) & Norm Elder (22yo, of Washington) and Wendy Kleiner (18yo) & Denis Boses (25yo) -- at the Troubadour nightclub at 1081 Santa Monica Blvd to see either a comedian perform or a music show. Marina & John then returned to John's home -- where she had left her car -- at ~11:30pm.

Marina left John's house at about 3:15am and drove to her mother's home at 8962 Cynthia St. It's an approximately 20min drive home at the time. She was last seen wearing brown & white pinstriped capris, a white turtleneck sweater, and a brown coat with fur-trimmed cuffs.

At about 3:30 or 3:35am, Marina's mother (Eloise Hardt) was woken up by noises/a commotion/a loud car exhaust outside her window. Hardt saw Marina's car in the driveway, with a 20-something man standing next to it and a black sedan parked next to it. Hardt heard the young man yell either "Let's go" or "Let's blow", then jump into the passenger side of the sedan, which then pulled away. Hardt did not see Marina. From there, Marina's mother called the police, and searches were quickly underway under the assumption that she had been kidnapped.

Jan. 1, 1969, ~2pm: A couple/a woman found Marina's purse, containing her credit cards and compact, in the 8800 block of Mulholland Drive near Bowmont Drive.

*** However, one source from the time -- The Wed., Jan. 1 1969 edition of the LA Evening Citizen News -- stated that, "An examination of [Marina's] car revealed the emergency brake was pulled up all the way, which takes a good deal of strength, according to detectives. The girl's small purse was on the seat of the car, but her glasses, which she needs to drive, were not inside."

Jan. 1, 1969, ~4pm: Her body is found by a man -- named Frank G. Turner, of Sherman Oaks -- walking his dog (a great dane) "hidden" in heavy brush at the bottom of a thickly-wooded ravine. The dog was "loping along the road" when it "stopped suddenly and peered intently into the brush. When Turner checked the cause of the dog's curiosity, he saw the face of the dead girl." Her body was found down a 30ft embankment off a fire road off of Mulholland Drive -- which was apparently known as a lovers lane, according to at least one clipping -- near Coldwater Canyon Dr in the Hollywood Hills. One clipping stated that, "Searchers said the ravine was so overgrown with brush that a helicopter circling the area for days did not spot the body." Marina's body was found wearing the same brown capris and fur-trimmed coat that she was last seen alive in.

(LAFD Fire Station 108, transferred from Mountain Patrol to LAFD in 1968, is right near the intersection of Coldwater Canyon Dr & Mulholland Dr)

Marina was stabbed six times, mainly in the chest. Her throat was cut, severing her carotid artery. She had two black eyes and apparent blunt force trauma on her body, having been beaten with a "small blunt object." She bled to death. There was no evidence of rape, "but authorities believe her death was the result of an attempted rape." According to one clipping, "Sheriff's Lt. White said the girl had been dead since early Monday morning." Footprints were apparently found at the scene.

Marina had graduated from University High School in West LA in June 1968. At the time of her death, she was attending the University of Hawaii and was home for the Christmas holidays. Her parents -- writer Hans Habe and actress Eloise Hardt -- were divorced at the time, and her mother (Eloise) had supposedly remarried. Her father, Hans, lived in Zurich, Switzerland at the time. Marina was 5'3 and 113lb, with blue eyes and black hair. Marina was described by friends as "very quiet," and was planning on becoming an artist.

Her murder is quite similar to that of Reet Jurvetson in 1969, and comparisons were made in reports at the time, but investigators have never found a solid connection between the two. Four months after Marina's death, another teenage girl, Rose Tashman, was found murdered off of Mulholland Drive; Rose had been strangled. Marina, Reet, and Rose's cases are all still unsolved. Some people theorize that Marina may have been a victim of the Manson Family and/or Bruce Davis.

DEC 29 1968 - JAN 1 1969
LUNAR PHASE: waxing gibbous
ZODIAC SIGN: capricorn
DAY OF WEEK: Sun. - Wed.
EVENTS: Dec. 31 = NYE (1 day after kidnapping, 1 day before body found); Dec. 25 = Christmas (5 days before kidnapping)
Dec. 30: Moon-Pleiades 21:58; Jan. 1: Venus 45.3*E, Moon Apogee 10:13

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