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On the night of his death, George hosted a party at his house. By midnight, the guests had gone. Only George, Lenore, and writer Robert Condon were in the house when two of Lenore’s friends banged on the door, looking for a party. According to Jim Nolt, George abruptly dismissed the women then went upstairs to his bedroom:

“I think this made Lenore Lemmon very angry, that he treated her friend like that. She went upstairs and I think an argument started. I think George told her that he had no plans to marry her, and that she became very angry and pulled out a gun. And I don’t think on purpose, but I think accidentally, shot George.”

The on-scene ruling was suicide. A pistol on the floor between George’s legs seemed to confirm it. But there were inconsistencies. Not a single fingerprint was found on the gun. The fatal bullet was lodged in the ceiling above the bed, yet, the shell casing was found underneath the body. Jim Nolt’s conclusion was not suicide, but murder:

“If George Reeves had committed suicide and held the gun to his head, the bullet casing would have been expelled away from his body, not in back of his body where he would have fallen on it. There were no powder burns on his hands, there were no powder burns on his head, which means that the gun was held far enough away from his head that there weren’t any powder burns. Somebody else pulled that trigger.”

But who was that somebody else? Lenore was Suspect #1. Suspect #2 was Eddie Mannix. According to writer Michael Hayde, word around town was that Mannix was angry at George for dumping his wife:

“I believe that Eddie Mannix, tired of listening to his wife grieve and obsess over George Reeves, decided that it was time to take some action. It was my understanding that George’s house was pretty much an open house, and I think it was relatively easy for Eddie Mannix to send someone over to the house during the course of a party that may have been going on, and Eddie Mannix had the guy killed.”

Jack Larson, who portrayed Jimmy Olsen on the Superman show, finds the Mannix theory incredible:

“That Eddie Mannix, who, by the end of the fifties was retiring, would endanger his life in the end of his life by having something nefarious done to George, is to my mind, ludicrous.”

Reeves biographer, Jim Beaver, agrees with Larson. He says the power burn evidence has been misinterpreted:

“The absence of powder burns raises a question in a lot of people’s minds because most people have a misconception about powder burns. They believe that powder burns happen when a weapon is placed up against the skin. That’s not the case. When the weapon is placed against the skin, the powder goes into the wound and does not burn the outside of the skin.”

According to the autopsy, the bullet entered George Reeves’ head about one inch above his right ear. It exited about an inch and 3/4 above the left ear and then lodged in the ceiling. Biographer Jim Beaver explains how the angle of the bullet suggested the gun’s position in relation to George’s head:

“If George had held the gun in the more comfortable and natural position, it would have ejected the shell directly behind him and onto the bed.”

As a fellow type-cast actor who suddenly found himself un-hireable, Jack Larson says he knows the kind of pain George must have been feeling at that time:

“Nobody wanted me to work at all. I don’t know what happened to George. I was depressed, and I accepted instantly that he had committed suicide.”

Writer Jim Nolt concludes that the evidence supports all three theories:

“I think there is evidence to support suicide. There is evidence to support a tragic accident. And there evidence to support murder. The only people who know how George Reeves died are no longer with us.”