WHO KILLED


MARGARET SENTENEY? A 1942 CARPINTERIA MURDER MYSTERY


Story By PAUL SISOLAK


CRIME,” SHAKING THE COMMUNITY AT LARGE LIKE A TIDAL WAVE, APPEARING AND DISAPPEARING, ONLY TO REAPPEAR AGAIN AND THEN VANISH AMIDST YEARS


I


OF RUMOR AND SPECULATION. On Aug. 29, 1942, the body of 20-year-old Margaret Senteney was discovered in a wooded area near the property of Maestro Leopold Stokowski, adjacent to the Carpinteria foothills in Toro Canyon. An apparent homicide, her battered body laid facing upward with signs of head trauma and strangulation. Senteney had gone missing the evening prior, having been on her way to a friend’s home to spend the night. Her walk would have taken her down


Undersheriff John Ross


SPRINGSUMMER2007 29


T STANDS AS CARPINTERIA’S GREATEST MURDER MYSTERY, AN INFAMOUS STORY IN THE CLASSIC SENSE OF “TRUE


a fairly isolated road near the former Carpinteria Union High School, where she had graduated two years prior.


“Her friends are convinced that she was forcibly abducted as she walked along the road,” read a news report from the archives of the former Carpinteria Herald.


A search party composed of about 40 citizens and a group of Boy Scouts had gone looking for Senteney before her body was found that day by the caretaker of Stokowski’s estate, who had been out for a walk. It was later concluded through autopsy results that Senteney died from strangulation by a rope or wire. Her head had been bludgeoned and skull split open, they determined, after she expired. Missing from her body were several articles of clothing: a shoe, a tweed coat and a purse.


There were also signs of an attempted rape, but no struggle; according to the Herald, the girl was found with dirt in her mouth, torn fingernails and


Margaret Senteney


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