Take a tour on the Dark Side of the West

New True Crime Tour Explores The Dark Side of the West Side

WHAT: Esotouric's Wild Wild West Side Crime Bus Tour
WHEN: Saturday 2/16/08, 12pm-5pm
COST: $55

On Saturday, February 16, Esotouric, the eclectic bus adventure company that's redefining bus tourism for a more sophisticated audience, presents its first ever West Los Angeles tour, WILD WILD WEST SIDE. To create this tour, Esotouric's crack researchers dove head first into West L.A.'s blood-soaked history to uncover a selection of forgotten and utterly fascinating crime stories dating from the 1910s through the 1960s, and spanning Venice, Santa Monica, Marina del Rey and Culver City.
The tour, hosted by 1947project time travel bloggers Kim Cooper and Joan Renner and Esotouric's Richard Schave, departs from the Museum of Jurassic Technology and visits such scenes as the 1920s cult that preserved the body of a young priestess and her seven puppies in salt and spices and buried her under an unassuming Venice bungalow for future reanimation, the school for feeble minded children burned down by a miserable resident, and a traditional duel conducted by knife-wielding teenage girls for the love of a married city bus driver.
Crime Bus passengers will be treated to detailed descriptions of some of the most notorious, strange and fascinating forgotten tales of the region, each told at the scene of the crime. They'll meet the secret wife who shot her hubby as he celebrated New Years Eve with his mother then willed herself into a coma rather than face sentencing, the crazy ladies who kept unwanted children as prisoners in a filthy beachside shack and may have murdered dozens and the gifted UCLA film student who slaughtered his girlfriend because he believed the evil spirit of his dead mother possessed her. All this, plus the torture of an Oscar-nominated set designer, a wealthy retiree tried for a murder that may never have happened, the vicious slaughter of a child by a serial killer beneath the Santa Monica pier, and other tales of terror and mystery that will forever change the way you view the West Side of Los Angeles.
For more info on Esotouric, visit http://www.esotouric.com
For info on the 1947project time travel blog, visit http://www.1947project.com

Upcoming Esotouric bus tour schedule (new tours starred):
Sat Jan 19- Blood & Dumplings San Gabriel Valley Crime Bus Tour
San Jan 26- Weird West Adams Crime Bus Tour
Sat Feb 2- Where the Action Was Hollywood Rock and Roll Tour
*Sat Feb 16- Wild Wild West Side Crime Bus Tour
*Sat Feb 23- Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles: The Many Downtowns
*Sat Mar 1- Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles: Route 66 (on Banham's birthday weekend)
*Sat Mar 8- Raymond Chandler's Bay City (West Los Angeles Chandler tour)
Sun Mar 9- Haunts of a Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowski's Los Angeles (on the anniversary of his death)
Sat Mar 15- Vroman's Bookstore presents Pasadena Confidential