It sounds like it could have been an episode of “Law & Order: SVU”, but the story of Cheryl Crane that rocked Hollywood in 1958 was all too true. It wasn’t “ripped from the headlines,” it was the headlines.
Cheryl Crane is the daughter of movie legend Lana Turner.
And at age 14, in 1958, Cheryl stabbed and killed her mother’s abusive gangster lover, Johnny Stompanato, during a domestic struggle.
His death was later ruled a justifiable homicide.
Cheryl Crane wrote a book called “Detour” in 1988 — and I met her just a few weeks before the thirtieth anniversary of the incident that changed her life.