The Disappearance of Mimi Boomhower

One day, the socialite just vanished.

Josie Klakström
8 min readJun 15, 2020
Mimi Boomhower via The Charley Project

After days of unanswered calls, Stella Hunter called the police to report her friend missing. When they arrived at the property, the door was locked and all the lights were on, but no one was home. Mimi Boomhower had vanished.

Born in 1901, Mimi Boomhower was a well-known socialite, who frequented Hollywood nightclubs and was seen at all the prestigious events throughout town.

48-year-old Mimi had inherited her late husband’s fortune and lived in their 10 room, Spanish style mansion in the middle of Bel-Air. A big game hunter, who took Mimi on safaris with him, Novice Boomhower was a linoleum magnate, who had died six years earlier.

Mimi appeared to be having financial issues and was beginning to sell her assets. Earlier in the year, she had taken out an equity loan to start a new business in manufacturing folding wooden furniture. The loan was for $5,000 (over $50,000 in 2020) but the new business never came to fruition. She had also begun to sell Novice’s hunting trophies and had recently pawned a $3,000 watch for just $100.

The house was worth $75,000 (nearly $800,000 in 2020), but she was looking to sell it at below market value at $65,000. However, Mimi still wore over $25,000 ($260,000 in 2020) worth of jewellery…

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Josie Klakström

Josie is a freelance journo who writes about writing, true crime, culture and marketing. www.truecrimeedition.com