Note: I wanted to update this blog note. Another web surfer and history nut says that this is a different Christine Collins. Again, I only cited it as a possibility, using a free public records search. Hopefully someone will be able to state for certain what happened to her at the end of her life.
Original Post:
Wow. Nobody seems to know what happened to Christine Collins (the character played by actress Angelina Jolie in the new movie Changeling. Some website entries swear she died in 1935, but I found two LA Times articles written in 1938 and again in 1941, when she renewed a $10,000 civil judgment that she’d won in a lawsuit, but it doesn’t look as if she was ever able to collect that money.
One Christine M. Collins, born on April 24th 1900, died in 1996 in Lafeyette, a city located in Contra Costa County, California; this is the only official public record I could find. Since her son was nine years old when he disappeared in 1928, it’s entirely reasonable that she was born in 1901. Maybe the lady’s still alive and she’s hiding out somewhere. I couldn’t blame her one bit for wanting to stay the hell away from the media.
christine collins was actually born in 1891 heres a link http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedailymirror/2008/11/changeling—ch.html
By: Anonymous on December 31, 2008
at 7:00 am
I just saw this movie and it shakes me to the core what the cops did to her. Well, at least she now knows what happened to walter. Jolie did a great job in this one.
By: dee on March 2, 2009
at 6:26 am
I also just saw the movie. Spellbinding. I would like to know if there are any interviews or stories or articles about this CODE 12. Stories of people that were commited there. Workers who told of conditions. I don’t know why, but the thought of the police being able to do that horrifies me and could be a movie in itself.
By: Stephen Konze on March 16, 2009
at 7:39 pm
I just saw the movie (rented) and was horrified on how this woman was treated. The whole entire police force was discusting if thats the word I can use…I believe that the police and polititions still try to manipulate the people time to time..take Bush and his gang…anyway, I hope she found some kind of closure in her life and was some how able to move on. Great cast, great acting, great movie.
By: cristina mullen on March 29, 2009
at 12:02 am
The story of Walter Collins and his
Mother Christine Collins was a really
big News Story here in Los Angeles! I don’t understand why Christine was so horribly treated by this Police Dept.
She lost a son by a brutal slimey and sick person such as Northcott was not to mention the sicko family he came from. Yet the News papers of the time had a lot more written on the Northcott family and very little on the Collins family. Christine had lost her son a husband was in jail and she lost her position at the phone company because of the police depArtment. Had they not put her in the hospital she would have maintained her job at the Phone Co.
She could have supported her self with what money she made from there but she lost every thing her son her job and a husband in jail!!! I would have sued the entire City for millions as I would guess she lost the home she was raising her son in as well!! This City owed her much more then 10,000.00. She truly suffered and yet no one can find a birth certificate on her or Walter and no record of her husband WAlter
from the prison where he was jailed.
Even though that prison may not exist
there had to be some record of him some where in the system. What a shame that a woman with class and a lot of intellegence had to go through such a horror as this. Was she not born here in Los Angeles?????
By: Rita on April 15, 2009
at 12:08 am
THESE ARE THE ACTUAL AND ACCURATE DATES.
Christine Ida Dunne Collins was born in 1891 and died on December 8, 1964 according to US Census data and CA public records. Her birth month is unknown or not listed in public records. She died at age 73. She was about 37 at the time that her son went missing. Her husband Walter Sr. was imprisoned in Represa at the time that Walter Jr. went missing. He died in 1932 at age 42. Check CA public records and prison file records. They have actual written and typed letters requesting the parole of Walter Sr. Also search CA public hospital records and public police files for documentation on Mrs. Collins incarceration in the psychiatric hospital.
By: Jamie on August 2, 2009
at 3:01 am