• U.S.

National Affairs: Meet a Pal

1 minute read
TIME

Handsome Herbert Goddard was a lodestar of lonely hearts. A member of virtually every “dating club” in Denver, Colo., he had a fatal fascination for women.

How fatal was revealed not in Denver, to that city’s relief, but in Florida, where Charles Jefferson (Goddard), self-styled film scout, raped two Miami high-school girls, and murdered one while the other, in horror, watched. Last week, convicted, he was sentenced to the electric chair.

The startled Denver City Council drafted an ordinance ending all meet-a-pal bureaus, matrimonial agencies and escort services, hoped to bar publications containing such advertisements from the newsstands, received inquiries about their new bill from many other U. S. cities bent on following their lead.

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