Murder Noir: Who Killed June Mack? Who Really Killed June Mack? – Part 1: Podcast 114

Somehow June Mack was a footnote in her own life.

She was a footnote in film history after she appeared in a Russ Meyer film, Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens. A footnote for her family who forgot she existed. A footnote in L.A., the jaded city where she’d re-invented herself. And a footnote in a shooting that left her dead.

It seems strange. June Mack was big, black, and beautiful. So why did she end up just a footnote?

She died in 1984. Many accounts of her murder still linger on message boards in dusty corners of cyberspace. Each tries to figure out how and why she died. Jimmy McDonough in his biography of Russ Meyer wrote: “June was murdered when a drug dealer was going to shoot her boyfriend. She stood in front of the guy to protect him, and took the bullet.”

Sounds heroic. Sounds like something that her film character, Junkyard Sal, might have done. But was it true?

Other reports say she was the target of gangland hit, someone wanted her wiped out. Or was her death just an accident? Bad place, bad time. Bad outcome.

I went to looking for an answer. A key that would unlock the truth behind the mystery. Maybe the clue was somewhere in her short life. Maybe the way she lived would reveal the way she died.

Not many people were talking. Many were dead, others had long disappeared. And some just don’t like the sound of their own voice.

June lived in the shadows. A film noir world, inhabited by a cast of misfits, gangsters, and lowlifes, where no one played it straight. You turn over her rock, and you uncover all kinds of stories: from drug deals, sex work, and hit men, to soldiers of fortune, bent bodyguards, video-taped orgies, and movie deals. Throw in the Colombian mob, poisoned cocktails, the pornographer Larry Flynt, the producer of ‘The Godfather’ Robert Evans, even the stars from 1970s hit TV shows ‘Sanford and Son’ and ‘Welcome Back, Kotter.’

But at the end of day, it boiled down to this: Who killed June Mack?

And then a second question: who really killed June Mack?

This podcast is 39 minutes long.

June Mack

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May 3, 1984. Los Angeles. It’s 10.30 in the evening, but it’s hotter than a whorehouse on nickel night.

June Mack descends the steps of a friend’s building. It’s on the 6800 block of Sepulveda Boulevard in Van Nuys. The street is dark with something more than night, but she is impossible to miss. Lacquered curly black wig, wild print dress, tan leather jacket, impossibly high heels. An arresting spectacle even in the dense shadows between the street lights.

A friend, Christian Pierce, is next to her. They walk up the sidewalk, north of Vanowen St. They pass a car with shaded side windows. They pass a man leaning against the hood. A driver sits inside. June and Christian make no eye contact with either of them. As they walk past the car, the standing man says something. June turns to look at him. Christian turns to look at June. The rest takes place in slow motion. Christian sees June recognize the man. Christian sees June panic. Christian sees June bolt.

Christian shouts at the man: “What do you want?” Gunshot cracks through the humid air. Christian grabs his stomach. He falls backwards. More shots ring out. June is hit from behind. She collapses on the street. Blood stains her clothing and spills on the sidewalk. The driver yells for the shooter to hurry,