her to stop pushing the investigation into her son's death. The case had recently been reopened after Victoria had a conference with the investigators. Ruth told Lila that Reid had left a suicide note, but that she wasn't going to tell anyone about it. Lee went to the District Attorney's office to say that there was no suicide note; however, Morris backtracked and said that there was. Lee herself never read the note, but Morris read it to her and then burned it in an ashtray. Later in life, James Kirkwood Jr. would confide to a friend, William Russo, that there had been three suicide notes – one in Ruth Morris' jewel box and two within a newel post on the handrail of a set of stairs in the house. The two other notes were found after the case was closed. Gouverneur Morris, his wife Ruth, and Lila Lee were questioned by authorities about the destruction of the suicide note. Mrs. Morris claimed she found the suicide note in a box on her dresser drawer two or three days after Russell's body was discovered. Because his death had already been declared a suicide, Morris decided to burn it. Gouverneur Morris added that neither he nor his wife heard the report of a gunshot neighbors recalled coming from the Morris home at about 9 P.M. on September 24, and that there had been no argument prior to Russell's death. On November 17, the Los Angeles Times reported that Russell's body may be exhumed depending on the report of a ballistic expert who was trying to determine if the .32 caliber revolver found in his hand had been fired recently. The following day, it was reported that the exhumation would go ahead (as it could not be determined if the rusty gun had been fired recently). During this time, investigators began to doubt the suicide hypothesis, but still were not considering murder; rather, they questioned whether his death had occurred somewhere other than the outside hammock. Also on the 18th, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Russell's mother Victoria claimed that four days before Russell's body was found, a woman had telephoned repeatedly asking for Russell and demanding to know where he was. Investigators were beginning to consider a "love slaying" theory. However, on November 19, his ex-wife told the Los Angeles Times that she believed Russell had killed himself. An entirely