A wealthy, powerful man, a beautiful widow, a scandalous affair, a murder, and a suicide: This true-life crime drama had it all, except for the answer to the question: Who killed Cecil Wells?

Cecil Wells was born in Litchfield, Pennsylvania, in 1902. In 1924, he moved his family to Anchorage, Alaska. He worked at various jobs, including gold panning, but he couldn’t find a job he enjoyed, or, more likely, he couldn’t find an occupation that would make him rich.

Wells temporarily returned to Pennsylvania to work with his father, but he returned to Anchorage in 1929. He worked as a mechanic in automotive garages, and he opened his own garage in 1930. Wells noted a gaping hole in the automobile marketplace in Alaska, and this is where he made his fortune. In 1930, there were no showrooms or car lots in Alaska. If you wanted to buy a new car, you had to choose one from a catalog and then wait for it to be shipped. Wells decided to bring vehicles to the consumers.

Wells obtained the rights to distribute Oldsmobiles and opened the first car dealership in Alaska. Over the next few years, he acquired distribution deals for General Motors, Cadillac, Pontiac, La Salle, Hudson, and Terraplane. Wells opened a Fairbanks branch to his dealership, and he sold his Anchorage dealership in 1940 and moved to Fairbanks.

Cecil Wells was a powerful man in Alaska, and he helped shape the future of the young territory. He was president of the Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce and elected president of the All Alaska Chamber of Commerce in 1953.

Wells did not have a reputation as a faithful husband. He was married five times and dallied in numerous affairs. In 1928, he served more than six months in prison for adultery, a laughable crime in today’s culture.

Like her husband, Cecil’s fifth wife, Diane, also apparently did not hold fidelity in high regard. Diane was twenty years younger than her husband, and in 1953, she was involved in an affair with local Fairbanks jazz drummer, Johnny Warren. Diane was a blonde Caucasian, Warren was African American, and this was the 1950s. Once revealed, the extramarital romance shocked and fascinated many in Fairbanks.

On October 17, 1953, neighbors of Cecil and Diane in their exclusive Fairbanks residential tower found Diane crying in the hallway. She was battered and bleeding. Inside the apartment, they found Cecil dead in bed , with a large gunshot wound in his head. He was 51 years old.

The police did a poor job analyzing the crime scene. Authorities neglected to collect fingerprints, and some of the evidence disappeared. Diane’s bloody pajamas vanished. Perhaps a police officer took them as a memento for himself or sold them as a lurid souvenir. Despite the apparent bullet hole in his head, police originally announced the killer bludgeoned Wells to death.

In addition to the bungled police investigation, Fairbanks Police Chief E.V. Danforth refused to work with the district attorney’s office, the U.S. Marshals, or the Territorial Police. He initially would not share information with any other agency. Under mounting pressure and a five-and-one-half hour meeting with the district attorney, though, he finally backed down and included the other agencies in the investigation.

According to Diane, two men entered their residence and hit her with a flowerpot and then killed Cecil. The police did not believe her, and when they learned of her affair with Johnny Warren, they suspected Diane and Warren murdered Cecil. Making himself appear even more suspicious, Warren left Fairbanks on the day of the murder and flew to Oakland, California. Authorities arrested Warren in Oakland, and only 18 days after someone killed Cecil Wells, a grand jury indicted Diane Wells and Johnny Warren for first-degree murder.

The murder of Cecil Wells made national news. Not only was Wells a wealthy, powerful man in Fairbanks, but the salacious love triangle added to the intrigue of the case. Johnny Warren admitted to having an affair with Diane, but he denied killing Wells.

According to Warren, Cecil and Diane occasionally came to the club where he and his band played. He said Diane flirted with him at the club. Warren, who was also married, decided to call Diane, and she invited him up to her apartment. He admitted he and Diane were still seeing each other at the time of her husband’s death, but Warren said he knew nothing about the murder of Cecil Wells.

The trial for the murder of Cecil Wells was scheduled to begin on April 5, 1954, but on March 9, Diane committed suicide by swallowing thirty sleeping pills in a Hollywood hotel room. She left two notes near her body. One described the pills, and the second read: “For one thing, I am guilty too, for ever seeing Warren. And if Warren is guilty, one thing for sure is — Cecil is dead. And I must be the cause of this, one way or another.” Diane’s autopsy indicated she’d had a recent abortion.

The murder charges against Johnny Warren remained open, but the trial was canceled. The bungled police investigation offered no evidence against Warren, and with Diane’s suicide, any hope that she would testify against Warren vanished. After six years, the district attorney’s office dropped the charges against Warren, and Johnny Warren quietly disappeared from Alaska. Police Chief Danforth resigned under pressure.

Did Diane Wells and her lover murder Cecil? Diane, at least, seems a likely suspect. Her story about unknown thugs beating her over the head with a flowerpot and then killing her husband changed several times. Still, in the heat of a traumatic event when she possibly lost consciousness, maybe she did not clearly remember what happened. As a powerful businessman, Cecil Wells probably had enemies, and perhaps someone, other than his wife and her lover, wanted him dead. Without fingerprints, additional forensic clues, or a confession, the truth eluded investigators. This sensational case captivated Fairbanks and the rest of Alaska, but we will never know who killed Cecil Wells.