Post by albion on Sept 19, 2016 17:14:47 GMT
This from an article about Joan Irvine and family. Patti andkei th were murdered during the legal fight to take control of the Irvine Co.
"Perhaps the family's most intriguing drama, however, played out in 1959 but still remains a mystery in some quarters. In what is known as the "double-bullet suicide," Myford Plum Irvine, then president of the Irvine Co., was found dead in the family ranch house after suffering shotgun blasts in the abdomen and head.
Thirty-five years after the fact, rumors continue to circulate that Irvine had rung up large Las Vegas gambling debts and that they may have been somehow related to his death. Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach), a former Irvine Co. executive, said the prominent executive's death became the subject of national speculation, particularly after a coroner ruled it a suicide.
"You're talking about a family who owned one-fifth of an entire county," Ferguson said. "No one's ever written the real story about them. If it were, it would be one of the most interesting stories ever written about life in California."
This is a family whose patriarchs and matriarchs have schmoozed with presidents, foreign dignitaries and movie stars, while largely avoiding the glitz and other trappings of celebrity. Not to mention the unflattering focus of the tabloid press.
But all that concern for discretion and decorum appeared to go out the window last month, when Morton, 29, set off a full-scale family feud by proceeding down the aisle with Campbell, a Long Beach nurse, trailed by Enquirer photographers and reporters."
"Perhaps the family's most intriguing drama, however, played out in 1959 but still remains a mystery in some quarters. In what is known as the "double-bullet suicide," Myford Plum Irvine, then president of the Irvine Co., was found dead in the family ranch house after suffering shotgun blasts in the abdomen and head.
Thirty-five years after the fact, rumors continue to circulate that Irvine had rung up large Las Vegas gambling debts and that they may have been somehow related to his death. Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach), a former Irvine Co. executive, said the prominent executive's death became the subject of national speculation, particularly after a coroner ruled it a suicide.
"You're talking about a family who owned one-fifth of an entire county," Ferguson said. "No one's ever written the real story about them. If it were, it would be one of the most interesting stories ever written about life in California."
This is a family whose patriarchs and matriarchs have schmoozed with presidents, foreign dignitaries and movie stars, while largely avoiding the glitz and other trappings of celebrity. Not to mention the unflattering focus of the tabloid press.
But all that concern for discretion and decorum appeared to go out the window last month, when Morton, 29, set off a full-scale family feud by proceeding down the aisle with Campbell, a Long Beach nurse, trailed by Enquirer photographers and reporters."
