Carter Roy

So Cheryl had to take the fall.

Casey Sherman's book, which is a biography of Lana and gangster Mickey Cohen, presents another possible play-by-play.

Some parts are the same as Cheryl's.

Lana found out Johnny was lying about his age, they fought, Johnny threatened Lana's life, and Cheryl overheard while watching TV.

However, in Sherman's telling, Cheryl never left her room.

Johnny and Lana's fight traveled throughout the house, at one point stopping in the kitchen before winding up in Lana's bedroom.

There, Johnny threatened to mutilate Lana, her mother, and Cheryl.

At that, quote, Lana went black.

In the kitchen, she'd picked up an eight-inch knife.

She stabbed Johnny, killing him.

After Johnny died, Lana called several people before the police.

One of them was lawyer Jerry Giesler.

He was Hollywood's go-to lawyer to get a celebrity out of trouble, especially murders.

Like I mentioned, murderers at the time could get the death penalty, but out of the 70 alleged killers Jerry defended, not a single one was executed, including mobster Bugsy Siegel and a famous boxer who had already confessed to murder.

So if you wanted to get away with murder, Jerry was obviously your guy.

Now, maybe Lana called him to protect her daughter.

She never tried to cover up his presence at the crime scene, but Jerry called someone else to come over, a person both Cheryl and Lana's biographies never mention, Fred Otash.

a notorious Hollywood fixer and former cop.

He was the inspiration for Showtime's anti-hero fixer Ray Donovan.

He'd done cover-ups for Marilyn Monroe and Jimmy Hoffa.