Amac Productions

Officially the death is ruled as a suicide by the police, but a lot of people don’t really buy into that. His mother for example. She even went so far as to hire a private investigator to discover the truth.

There’s even a movie about the different possible theories about his death.

Regardless, in honor of Halloween, I want to discuss the details of this mysterious death, because even I myself agree the circumstances surrounding his death are odd to say the least.

The night in question, George Reeves was not alone in the house. He had been out and had people over until he had enough and went upstairs leaving his fiancée – Leonore Lemmon – to host by herself. Around 1:30 to 2 he came down to yell at them to keep it down and returned upstairs.

Supposedly, Lemmon jokingly said he was going upstairs to shoot himself and narrated the event.

Now, of course, there were plenty of reasons why George Reeves might want to kill himself. He had plenty of financial trouble since he had broken it off with Toni Mannix, wife of Eddie Mannix with ties to mobs or gangs. She had paid for almost everything in his life, including his home, and the car he drove.

Funnily enough, Eddie knew about the relationship and didn’t care. He had plenty of his own affairs as well.

Without his sugar mama, Reeves didn’t have a lot of money to his name.

While he is most well-known for Superman, some people might not know that he never really wanted the job fearing he would be typecast.

And he was right.

Reeves longed to be a serious actor and nearly had his big break until he was drafted into the war where he never saw any action. He made movies to help make the army money. Thus, when he returned, he couldn’t even play the war hero card as some other actors did. His once flourishing career was gone.

He had to start over.

With Superman.

At the time, TV was just starting out and not where the ‘real’ actors went. But Reeves needed the work and the paycheck, so he took the job of Superman despite his reservations. All of which became completely founded.

He landed a role in a big-time movie but when the test audience saw it, they shouted their excitement at seeing Superman. With that, he was cut from the movie and his last hopes of making it on the silver screen were dashed.

He carried on as Superman appearing in public as the character to make extra money but ultimately was fed up with the poor pay of the TV series. Then the series was cancelled, and he had called off his relationship with Toni Mannix having fallen in love with Lemmon.

No money. No future career prospects. It’s easy to see how George Reeves would consider suicide as an alternative.

Except while it’s all within reason that he could have killed himself, there’s a few things that never added up about his death.

For starters, someone cut the breaks to his car just weeks earlier. A police report to that fact was filed though nothing ever came of it.

Are you telling me whoever cut his brakes gave up?

What about Lemmon and her friends?

They were horribly drunk that night and while their stories were initially similar, since that night different accounts have come forward. Including one where Lemmon who claimed to be downstairs at the time of the shooting was actually upstairs and insisted her friends tell the police she was nowhere near Reeves.

They also waited a period of time before calling the police. Claiming they needed to sober up.

Or maybe get their stories straight might be more accurate.

There was no gun powder residue on Reeves’ hands.

This particular note could go either way as well since it was not commonly looked for at this time in history. Reports say there wasn’t any. Others say it was never looked for.

However, where the bullet casings were found is odd to say the least.

Everyone at the party said they only heard one shot. But three bullets were fired from the gun that killed Reeves. One bullet in the ceiling, floor, and his head. He landed on the bullet casing when he slumped.

A feat some experts have said isn’t possible when you kill yourself.

The burns on his head from the gun are inconsistent with a suicide. One article I read suggested he would need to hold the gun a foot or more from his head to achieve the burns on his head.

Why would you hold the gun that far away if you were trying to kill yourself?

The PI his mother hired also found bruises about his neck and chest. Did he beat himself up before shooting himself?

Oddly though, there are no signs of forced entry or evidence to suggest another person was in the room.

Equally odd though are the missing shell casings which Lemmon attributed to the gun having been shot off weeks earlier for no reason. Apparently. And the complete lack of fingerprints on the gun.

If Reeves shot himself, who wiped the prints?

He would have been too dead to do that himself.

Also, the PI abruptly stopped investigating the case. He claims he was satisfied that it was a suicide after finding bruises about Reeves’ head and face which led him to believe at the time that it was a murder. Why did he change his mind so abruptly?

The gun at his feet was odd.

A million tiny details that just don’t add up.

However, without further evidence or interest I suppose the police ruled it a suicide and left it be.

Especially with his fiancée claiming to the whole world it made sense. He was depressed due to his ‘failed’ career and that he couldn’t get more work.

Logically, I suppose that makes sense.

But what about the missing shell casings? Why would he have fired the gun in his home for no reason? Who caused the bruises? Was Lemmon really downstairs at the time of the murder? Why did they wait around 40 minutes to call the police? How did he land on the spent shell casing? How did the gun end up between his feet? How many different stories were there from a group of drunk people having a party? Who cut his brakes just a few weeks earlier?

But more importantly than any of that is what happened with his costar from Superman, Phyllis Coates.

Around 4:30 a.m. on June 16th, she received a phone call from Toni Mannix.

Toni Mannix was horribly distraught and babbling that ‘the boy’ was dead and that ‘he had been murdered.’

Keep in mind this is 1959.

News does not travel anywhere near the speed in which it does today.

His death was investigated around 3 in the morning. Which means that within two hours, Toni Mannix knew that Reeves was dead. Even going so far as to say he had been murdered.

Nothing came of this, obviously.

This is nothing more than hearsay from Phyllis Coates who couldn’t testify with this information in any courtroom. Nor do I believe a wife of a suspected mobster was going to take the stand and say he was killed, possibly by her husband in a court of law.

Nope.

However, this appears to be the most compelling piece of evidence.

Because Phyllis Coates knew George Reeves was dead before it hit the papers. Before people were called and talked about his tragic death. She knew.

How could she know so early unless she was called just as she said?

How could Toni Mannix know?

There’s plenty of theories about how all this plays out, but mine is very simple.

While Eddie Mannix had no issues with his wife going out and about with another man, in fact he encouraged it. It allowed him to do as he pleased with whomever he wanted. And while his power and influence was wanning by this point, I’m sure he had enough people he could call on to do him a favor.

Because George Reeves broke his wife’s heart.

There’s a case to be made that he did love his wife and wanted her to be happy. Gave her the finest in life including whatever lover she chooses. And he had the same. A mutual respect and love for each other only they could understand.

How would he feel now if someone hurt his wife? Broke up with her? Dumped her for another woman altogether?

Would she cry to her husband about her heartbreak? Probably.

Toni Mannix even made several attempts to get back together with Reeves once he broke it off to no avail. She didn’t even kick him out of his house or take back the car.

The car.

The car whose brakes were cut.

That seems pretty mob-like to me. So when it didn’t work out to look like a driving accident, they went for a suicide look instead. And everything slots into place pretty good.

Eddie Mannix sends someone to take out Reeves for not coming to his senses and getting back with his wife. A little payback for breaking her heart.

They cut the brakes, but it doesn’t work.

They get into the house Toni has a key to.

Wait for the right moment and use Reeves’ own gun to kill him. They fight, maybe not well or loudly. Maybe there are two of them. Multiple gunshots that the people at the party don’t catch because they’re too sloshed to notice anything but the next drink.

They take the extra shell casings, set it up, and leave.

Maybe the people at the party never heard anything and that’s why it took them 40 minutes to call the police. Maybe they were trying to save face in case they were blamed. Who knows what a bunch of drunk people were thinking in the wee hours of the morning?

It also perfectly explains why the PI dropped the case suddenly.

He might have been threatened.

Personally, I am of the mind and opinion that it was a revenge killing by Eddie Mannix for breaking his wife’s heart. An odd twist on the tale of cheating spouses. Nevertheless, I think it fits pretty well.

Given that Toni Mannix appeared to know before anyone outside of Reeves’ home that fateful morning.

However, the truth of the matter is that we’ll never really know.

Most of the people are involved are long since gone. This will more than likely remain a mystery with several elements we just can’t explain because even the theory of Eddie Mannix ordering the hit doesn’t answer everything.

Maybe there’s another theory we’ve never thought of. Who knows?

I suppose the answer to that is quite simple, but hard to get an answer from – George Reeves himself. He was there. He knows what happened to him. But good luck getting him to answer us.

Please do me a favor and tell me what you think really happened that night.

Thanks for reading! Spread the love and read on!