Los Santos is huge. Like, genuinely massive. If you’ve spent any time driving from the neon-soaked streets of Vespucci Beach up to the dusty, meth-scented air of Blaine County, you know how easy it is to miss the small stuff. And the "small stuff" in Grand Theft Auto V often hides the darkest secrets. One of those secrets involves a brutal, 1970s-style Hollywood slasher mystery that you can only solve by picking up 50 tiny pieces of paper scattered across the entire state of San Andreas.
You need a GTA V letter scraps map because, honestly, finding these things by accident is basically impossible.
Most players stumble upon their first scrap by total fluke. Maybe you’re hiking up Mount Chiliad or hiding from a five-star wanted level under a bridge in La Mesa, and you see a glowing, fluttering piece of paper. It makes a faint, scratching wind sound. You pick it up. You get a notification that you’ve found 1/50. Then you look at the map and realize you have 49 more to go across 49 square miles of terrain. It's daunting. It’s also one of the few collectibles in the game that actually rewards you with a unique mission and a bit of narrative closure rather than just a percentage point on a stat screen.
The Leonora Johnson Mystery Explained
The scraps aren't just random collectibles. They are pieces of a confession letter written by a man named Peter Dreyfuss. Back in the 70s, a starlet named Leonora Johnson was tortured and murdered. It’s a clear nod to the real-life Black Dahlia case (Elizabeth Short), which has fascinated true crime buffs for decades. In the game’s universe, the case went cold. Nobody could prove who did it.
By finding all 50 scraps, the letter reassembles itself. It’s a depraved, rambling manifesto where Dreyfuss brags about the killing. Once the final piece is in your inventory, Franklin Clinton—the only character who can actually finish this quest—gets a location marker to confront the killer at his mansion in Vinewood Hills.
It’s dark stuff. Even for GTA.
Navigating the GTA V Letter Scraps Map
If you try to do this without a guide or a digital GTA V letter scraps map, you are going to lose your mind. Some are hidden inside the dry docks of the Port of South Los Santos. Others are literally on top of the "I" in the Vinewood sign. There is one scrap sitting on a tiny rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that you’ll never find unless you happen to be taking a Dinghy out for a spin in exactly the right spot near the Palomino Highlands.
The Los Santos City Scraps
The city is dense. You’ll find scraps tucked away in places you usually zoom past at 120 mph in a stolen Adder.
- Airport and Ports: Check the Los Santos International Airport. There’s one sitting right near a trash can on the terminal 4 sight-seeing platform. Down at the docks, look for the crane. You have to climb way up. It’s a pain, but the view is decent.
- The Metro Channels: You know that massive concrete river where the famous chase scene from Terminator 2 (and GTA’s own missions) happens? There’s a scrap hidden in the tunnel systems near the South Los Santos area.
- Movie Studios: Since the murder is a Hollywood parody, it makes sense that a piece is inside the Richards Majestic studio lot. Specifically, look on the balcony of the Solomon Richards office building.
The Wilderness and Blaine County
This is where it gets tricky. When you move north into the mountains, the density drops but the difficulty of reaching the scraps spikes. You’re going to need a helicopter. Seriously, don't try to do the northern half of a GTA V letter scraps map on a motorcycle.
High up on Mount Chiliad, there's a scrap just chilling on a cable car platform. Then there’s the one at the Altruist Cult camp. If you haven't cleared that area out, those creepy nudists will try to kill you the moment you step foot on their porch to grab the paper.
One of the most annoying scraps is at the Thompson Scrapyard. It's inside the cabin of a rusted-out bus. It’s easy to walk right past it because everything in that yard looks like junk. That’s the brilliance—and the frustration—of Rockstar’s world design. They hide things in plain sight by surrounding them with visual noise.
Why People Still Struggle With the 50/50
I’ve seen dozens of threads on Reddit and old GTA forums where people get to 49/50 and want to throw their console out the window. This usually happens because the game doesn't tell you which one you missed.
If you aren't checking them off on a physical or digital GTA V letter scraps map as you go, you’re doomed. You’ll end up retracing your steps to all 50 locations just to find the one you thought you grabbed but actually died before the game auto-saved.
Pro Tip: Use the Rockstar Games Social Club. It actually syncs with your save file and shows you an interactive map of which specific scraps you haven't collected yet. It’s the only way to keep your sanity if you're stuck at 49.
The Confrontation: "A Starlet in Vinewood"
Once you have the letter, you go to Peter Dreyfuss’s house. He’s an old man now, meditating in his backyard, completely unrepentant. You get a choice. You can let him run, or you can do what most players do: pull out a pump shotgun and give him the justice the LSPD never could.
The mission doesn't pay a million dollars. It doesn't give you a flying car. But it provides a sense of world-building that makes Los Santos feel like a place with a history, albeit a bloody and cynical one.
Common Misconceptions About the Scraps
Some players think you need to find the scraps to get the 100% completion trophy. They are right. If you want that "Career Criminal" achievement, the letter scraps are mandatory.
Others think you can find them as Michael or Trevor. While you can pick them up as any of the three protagonists, the final mission only triggers for Franklin. It’s a bit of a weird design choice, but Franklin is generally the "cleaner" of the group who handles the various "Strangers and Freaks" side stories.
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Also, don't confuse these with the Spaceship Parts. Those are for a different mission involving an eccentric conspiracy theorist named Omega. The spaceship parts are often in similar "hard to reach" places, but they look like glowing green engine components, not fluttering paper.
Actionable Steps for Your Collection Run
- Get a Buzzard: Or any helicopter. The Frogger works too. You need verticality. Trying to climb the construction skyscrapers or the mountains on foot is a waste of time.
- Pull up a high-res GTA V letter scraps map: Open it on a second monitor or your phone.
- Work in Zones: Start at the southern tip of the map (the docks) and work your way north in a "zigzag" pattern. Don't jump from the city to the desert and back.
- Listen for the sound: The scraps make a distinct "fluttering" audio cue. If you're near the map marker but don't see it, turn your game volume up and look for the white glow.
- Save frequently: If you collect five scraps and then fly your chopper into a power line, you might lose that progress depending on when your last auto-save triggered. Manual saves are your friend.
Solving the Leonora Johnson murder is one of the most iconic "hidden" parts of the GTA V experience. It’s a grim reminder that behind the satire and the explosions, Rockstar built a world with layers of dark lore. Grab your map, get a fast vehicle, and start hunting. The closure is worth the effort.