Alex Carson
Edward Durston was a car salesman who sometimes worked as a writer and director in Hollywood. However, the sometimes-filmmaker remains famous for linking to the deaths of two actresses. Edward links to the deaths by chance, insisting that the director may do with them than he let on. To make matters even stranger, Edward had a strange connection to both Sharon Tate and the Manson Family. Join Facts Verse as we explore if Edward Durston was responsible for the deaths of these Hollywood women.
Edward Durston was born on September 10, 1921. Throughout his lifetime, he maintained a career as a car salesman. However, he also made a couple of notable dabs into Hollywood entertainment. During the 1950s, Edward got a gig writing and directing the television series Playhouse 90. The program came on the air in 1956 and stayed on the air until 1960. Five years later, in 1965, Edward was able to direct his very first feature film. That feature film is The Love Statue, and its subject matter involves the use of the psychedelic drug LSD. Acid was growing in popularity around the time, particularly in the Hollywood circles that Edward hung out in. The Manson Family murders would occur only four years later, during the pre-production stages of Edward’s second film. Edward would take inspiration from the murders when finalizing the film’s script, titled I Drink Your Blood.
Edward’s second film inspires by the Manson Family murders, but the director strangely links to Sharon and the murders themselves. One thing, Edward is a suspect in the Manson Family murders, he is an acquaintance of one of the victims. Edward is at the suicide of a woman, friends with Sharon, before her murder at the hands of the cult.
The woman whose supposed suicide Edward was present was an actress by the name of Diane Linkletter. The event occurred in 1969, the same year as the Manson Family murders. Diane is friends with Edward and says to have been an acquaintance of Sharon Tate’s. Diane was apparently in a poor mental state and called her friend Edward over to console her. Edward claims that Diane takes LSD the night prior to the suicide, though no LSD is in her system. Still, it may be in her system by the time the autopsy performs.
Whether Diane Linkletter was on LSD when she committed suicide or not, she had a history of using the drug. Diane’s father was famed entertainer Art Linkletter, and he wholeheartedly blamed the illicit substance for the death of his daughter. Art will spend his remaining years campaigning against the use of LSD. Believing that Diane will still be alive if it isn’t for her consumption of the drug. Contrastingly, many speculate that LSD played no cause in the event and that Diane’s death actually a murder… perpetrated by Edward Durston.
Edward claims that he calms Diane down and that the two are making cookies when he goes into the room. Only to come back and find that Diane is climbing through the window to jump out. According to him, he tried to grab her belt to save her but failed. She fell to her death. Diane isn’t even 21 years old at the time of her death, with her 21st birthday, only weeks away. She is a promising career ahead of her thanks to her father’s connections, and he wreck.
Edward Durston is the very last person to see Diane Linkletter alive. The authorities question the director about whether or not there is involving foul play. He remains adamant that Diane’s death is a suicide, though he is trouble maintaining idiosyncratic details of his story. Because of this, authorities became doubly suspicious and decided that they were going to make Edward take a polygraph test. The results of the polygraph test are never in public. Edward is never charged with any crime relating to the death and the matter seems to drop.
Edward Durston’s involvement in the suicide of Diane Linkletter is strange enough all on its own. He links to another mysterious death nearly two decades later. If you’re enjoying this video so far, be sure to hit the like button to show your support! Also, subscribe to the channel if you’d like to know when more Facts Verse videos are on their way!
In 1985, Edward Durston was\ involved in the death of another woman. This woman is another actress, it’s at the end of her career instead of starting as Diane Linkletter had been. Carol Wayne, becomes popular thanks to her tenure on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. She starts performing on the late-night series at the end of the 1960s. It continues in the 1970s after the network reduces Johnny Carson’s time from 90 minutes to 60.
Carol performs in various sketches on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. But she didn’t succeed in the entertainment industry after being let go. Instead, the actress turned to drugs and alcohol as a means to cope with losing her big break. Ensuing the time leading up to 1985, Carol falls deeper into drugs and alcohol, rumors to start an escort business. It was likely through these means that Carol took up with Edward Durston.
Edward and Carol accompanied each other from Los Angeles to a resort in Mexico, and Edward was the only one of the two to return. Edward had left a note on Carol’s bags at the airport saying that the actress would be by sometime to pick them up, though this never happened. Instead, her corpse finds floating off the beach of the resort. Though there were no signs of foul play, many found it incredibly suspicious that the water-averse actress had drowned.
When the authorities look deeper into the incident, Edward and Carole get into an argument the night of her disappearance. It leads to Carole wandering off by herself to the beach. Though the death declares accidental, the true cause of her death remains a mystery. The authorities could not make sense of how she came to drown, as there were no marks on her body indicating that she had tripped into the water, nor was there any presence of drugs and alcohol found in her system.
Two deaths that Edward Durston links to and may have been at least partially responsible for, the death of Carole Wayne seems the most suspicious, Edward and her say to be into an argument previously. When you put both of the mysterious deaths together, it certainly makes one question the coincidence that Edward connects to both of them! Despite this, Edward is never officially charged with any crimes relating to the deaths and lives the life of a free man until his own death from pneumonia in 2010.
At the time of his death, Edward is trying to get the ball rolling on a remake of his 1971 feature I Drink Your Blood, which is in pre-production when Edward witnesses Diane Linkletter’s death and inspires by the Manson Family murders. When Edward had begun production on I Drink Your Blood, the Manson Family murders had yet to occur. Director Fred Gross asks Edward to come up with a concept for the most disgusting horror film, and Edward finds inspiration in footage of rabid Iranian schoolchildren attacked by wolves. Edward found the concept of a horror film about rabies both interesting and properly disgusting. According to Edward, the idea of mixing the Manson Family murders into the concept comes when the crimes publicize.
Edward involves in the LSD scene and addresses themes of the drug in his first feature. It makes sense that he attracts to the subject matter of the Manson Family murders, even if it isn’t for the fact that he considers a suspect in them. The film went on to become a minor cult success, though Edward is still mostly thought about today for his potential involvement in the two aforementioned deaths.
After the release of I Drink Your Blood in 1971, Edward Durston filmed two more Hollywood features before turning to porn. He produced several pornographic films in the late 1970s, though one of them was prevented from being released after one of it’s star was cast in the Clint Eastwood vehicle Escape from Alcatraz. Fearing that the appearance of one of his fellow actors in a pornographic film would sully his image, Clint seems to have somehow convinced Edward not to release the particular pornographic feature.
In the later years of his life, it seems that Edward Durston spent the majority of his efforts trying to get the ball rolling on the aforementioned modern remake of I Drink Your Blood, though all plans for such a project were put to a permanent end after the director’s 2010 death. In the years since his death from pneumonia, more and more people have begun to question whether or not Edward Durston was responsible for the deaths of Diane Linkletter and Carole Wayne.
Although Edward Durston was never charged with any crimes in relation to the deaths of Diane Linkletter and Carole Wayne, there are many suspicious details surrounding their deaths that are still raising questions about the filmmaker to this day! Now it’s time to hear from you: do you think that filmmaker Edward Durston killed Diane Linkletter and Carole Wayne, or do you think that his being linked to both of their deaths was a coincidence? As always, like this video to show your support, and subscribe and hit the notification bell if you’d like to be among the first to know when more Facts Verse videos are on their way!
