Vernon Mapes (1894-September 29, 1947) was a former American police officer and Los Angeles Police Department Detective in the Vice Squad. He was well known as a corrupt cop, and future corrupt officers like Roy Earle admired him. Mapes later became the head of security for Howard Hughes and Hughes Aircraft, where he was involved in orchestrating several shady business deals for the company and arranging prostitution with several Hollywood starlets for Howard Hughes. In 1947, he was working with Oscar Hangstrom aka Harold McLellan, the chief chemist at Nicholson Electroplating Plant to steal a new aluminum polishing process from Fred Nicholson, to sell to Howard Hughes, via Mapes, who murdered an employee, Frank Martin, who, along with Lockheed spy Tomoko Okamoto, were trying to steal it for Lockheed after finding out about the scam. Mapes was then killed by the Los Angeles Police Department Arson Detective Cole Phelps, during the 1947 Hughes Aircraft Shootout, on September 29th, 1947.