True Police Cases, July 1954

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a Sa, Under his jacket Are you proud that he has everything he needs as he starts the adventure of each day at school? Be prouder still of something hidden under his trim jacket —the stout heart that sends him off unafraid and eager. This, too, you have given him because your love has made his small world secure, With it, he will build his own security as each challenge comes, in those days when he must stand alone without you. What finer gift can you give those you love than the gift of security? It is the great privilege in America, where we are free to provide it. And think, too—this is the way each of us helps build the security of our country, by simply taking care of our own. A secure America is the sum of its secure homes. The security of your country begins in your home. Saving for security is easy! Read every word—now! If you’ve tried to save and failed, chances are it was because you didn’t have a plan. Well, here’s a savings sys- tem that really works—the Payroll Savings Plan for investing in U.S. Savings Bonds. This is all you do. Go to your company’s pay office, choose the amount you want to save—a couple of dollars a payday, or as much as you wish. That money will be set aside for you before you even draw your pay. The U. S. Government does not pay for this advertisement. It ta donated oe this cooperation with the Advertiving Co Publishers of Ame And automatically invested in Series “E” U.S. Savings Bonds which are turned over to you. If you can save only $8.75 a week on the Plan, in 9 years and 8 months you will have $2,187.30. U.S. Series “E” Bonds earn interest at an average of 8% per year, com- pounded semiannually, when held to maturity! And they can go on earning unc and the Magazine interest for as long as 19 years and 8 months if you wish, giving you a re- turn of 80% on your original in- ae vestment! Eight million working men and women are building their security with | the Payroll Savings Plan. For your | . a tes = sake, and your zenty's too, how 5 ohsee signing up today you are self-em- Stree ask your banker about ths Bond-A-Month Plan. Wah oo re

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This odifi the pd J P| aba. 9 Me Por A Fawcett Publication JULY, 1954 rue police cases Editer JOSEPH CORONA Associate Editor FRANK K, COFFEE Art Editer Ant Atsoclote EMILIO SQUEGLIO Ast Assotiete LIBBY CALAMIA magazine Is published In the Interests of law enforcement, for the cation of officials and private citizens, Each, by learning more about methods of erlminals, may be better armed In the fight against crime. DETECTIVE CASES AND FEATURES @ RAPE TERROR RIDE A tole of horror: murder, rape and kidnap ooo... .ccscescenrens BILL SARGEANT @ THE SLASHER London had its Ripper; Montreal tears the Slasher ..... JOSEPH THOMASON . @ SIN, SEX AND SADISM . . . HOLLYWOOD UNCENSORED Secret lives of stars can give a vice cop a hangover! .......... EARL J. ABBOTT @ | TRACKED A SLIPPERY KILLER Our author and his camera faced a dead-shot slayer ............1+. BOB BRISTER @ NORFOLK'S BLUDGEONED PLAYGIRL A blackjack ended the war bride's folly ...-.-i:srcmreon TED THOMPSON IDDLE OF THE FLEEING BLACK CAT ty 2 He starred in his own production of death v.c.c.sesccssserssesscesnss DAVID DREW TTLE JOE'S LAST BIG GAME : Hidden money exposes girlie-lure gambling racket .........0 CARL GADDIS Jaane POETS AND DARK DESTINY : ° rar pate and the pauper meet in.a drama of doom .......... FRANCES LIPSIG CRAZY, MIXED-UP KIDS a Are these our children? ....ss.cvssossscvssssssenscesstessereressteroctnsncannnctnes RAY BRENNAN NS A DEADLY WEB ° seb foo much woman for any One MAN 5.0.0.2... ALTON CRUMBAUGH AND THE STRANGLER 4 > bi tip was moking love to her... 1 choked her”’ ..... AL CAMPBELL © Y LOVES LED TO MURDER ut phedigeese's and women were plentiful; clues scarce escestiensaenesBe Je WILLIAMS, SHORT FEATURES CRIMELIGHT PERSONALITIES . 4 HOW NOT TO MAKE MONEY .. SHAKE HANDS WITH A FOR THE BIRDS .........+05% MURDERER ..,.-seeeeeeeees 49 HOW IT BEGAN ........0s00% ONE FALSE MOVE ....,..-004 MAN OF MANY FACES....... 51 Ine, Raprin git rf . 5. nt Office pa payab! anted to eRe eere tak, Beg word fs, quoted RESTLESS ROMEO He tried to make happy every woman he met ........c.c..ccsccns. LOUIS ADAMS from this issue of this magazine on. dit iven to the ovye ight rien by Fawcett Publications, ¢ 5 Ca ner at al we statement, cases ‘A tee ont 1954 y dies, apron tales -) eet pan amaries diner: tore Hoseriptio is 84, ‘ou ptlons enioe id remitied by International Money rin inited st Greenwiey MBER AUDIT BUREAU OF CIROULATION jo ch: Mare! 6, Ls ae ie en Oe Pee. re 2 ud Waits -. VOL. 6 NO, 65 PHILIP CAMMARATA ieee tat Mt Truo Dolir. Bolin ce Imp Dolicg és sling True Police ases fat bol SIN CITY GUN RULE AND THE SHAKEDOWN STRIP GIRLS To bring you the inside story of the shock- ing conditions which exist today in the most sinful city in America—Calumet City, Illinois —our special investigator risked life and limb. What is more, he took with him au photographer who /recorded, for you to see, the crooked setups operating wide open under the very noses of police officers and — politicians! Under threat of mayhem, strip- tease girls and B-girls are forced to fleece every last cent out of any sucker who walks into the dimly lighted dens of sin and sex. — 3 6 10 The girls promise much; but all a customer gets for his money issa fast line—and a 16 broken nose if he Lae dries too demanding. Goons and gangsters control the nefarious night spots; no girl dares to defy the gun 20 rule—not if she wants to stay pretty and alive! This is a story you won't want to miss! 24 HOMICIDE DRAGNET Behind the scenes in a murder investigation, | 28 some fascinating dramas are enacted. TRUE POLICE CASES invites you to sit in with Miami's veteran sleuth, John L. Deas, chief 30 of the homicide bureau, as he fells you of the intricate evolutions that make up a homicide dragnet. One of Miami's most 34 baffling murder mysteries is solved before your very eyes; you get a close-up, step-by- 38 step view of the astute detective work that breaks an almost clueless killing and points the finger to a couple of ruthless, slippery 42 crooks. This story, under Chief Deas’ by-line, is fascinating! 4 BEDROOM CON MAN AND HIS a 16 DAZZLING QUEENS i When the handsome "Major’ Howard was released from prison, he had $14 in his 4 pockets In three months he had $56,000! This e accomplished ‘by pretending to be a movie director interested in producing TV programs, A New York banker became his 53 angel, and with a suave manner and his gift 58 of gab, he soon had beauties from the top 6 rung of society thinking they were the an- swers to Hollywood's prayers. With false promises of stardom, Howard stole their -money and their affections, It took the fie temper of a Viennese belly dancer to wreck his phony scheme and land him back behind bars. Here is a smash story about one of the — f greatest confidence men alive today. Ric THESE AND MANY MORE pd babed by ‘Amarloa's {sr fact dajses writers will be yours in the gripping Augu TRUE POLICE CASES on sale a8 your news stand June 2, Reserve your copy now! ee u ¢, Roem SY + ee 4a >

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iam Sore men never get enough of a good thing. Take the case of Kenneth Griffin, 35-year-old sandy-haired truck Iriver, who got into a rut asking women to marry him Within the span of one year, the good-looking Lothario had popped the $64 question to a total of four lovely lamsels, who, each in her own blushing way, answered yes. As Griffin, himself; explained it on January 29, 1954, before Judge Harold W. Schweitzer in Los Angeles, Cali fornia, the routine of driving a big hauling vehicle day in and day out can get pretty boring. As he tooled along the colorful, scenic countryside of the City of Angels, he dreamed of the wonders of womanhood and what they could do for him in the matter of whiling away the dull evenings by a fireside. With this purpose in mind, Griffin attended dances and social affairs where he could meet the prettiest of the opposite sex. Then, beneath a bright moon, with the orchestra playing soft music in the background, the ques- tion, he admitted later, would pour forth spontancously, That’s how it happened when he met lovely Betty Steigman in July, 1952. The fact that he was already married to a statuesque brunette, Josephine Griffin, whom he had wooed and won in Miami, Florida, on August 13, 1947, didn’t bother him one bit. In Betty, the marriage- happy trucker should have found all the happiness and companionship he longed for, But no. Despite the fact that he now contends he loves her more than the next three wives, Griffin waited less than six months before taking on Wife No. 3, Catherine [Continued on page 77] Some men pass away their time fishing or bowling; but Ken Griffin, below, had a more exciting hobby. He liked to get married, without bothering about the formality of divorce. Top row, 1. to r., Wives Nos. 1, 5 and 2: Josephine Griffin, Lucille Norvell and Ken’s favorite, Betty Steigman. Below, Wives Nos. 3, 4: Catherine Cantanzo, Vivian Martinelli. BY LOUIS ADAMS The handsome truck driver had one weakness: he tried to make happy every woman he met!

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CRIMELIGHT. PERS THE CANDID REPORTER TO MY VALENTINE. A mother of two who exchanged tenderly worded valentines with her lover, in which he said: “The things we share together always make me happier,” shared a final adventure with him—violent death. Police who found the bodies of Mrs. Ruth McMillan, 40, and Rocco Christiano, 43, in the Hawthorne, California, apartment they shared, listed their deaths as murder and suicide, reporting that Christiano fired seven bullets into Ruth McMillan and then shot himself. In the bedroom the police found the tender valentines the two had exchanged. On the one Ruth had given Rocco, she had written: ‘My love for you and you alone.” His was inscribed: “It’s so nice to be together.” Police theorized that an attempt by Mrs. McMillan to break off their association precipitated the tragedy. In the photo. a police lieutenant examines the bodies of the dead loyers. BATTERED BEAUTY. Pat Kuudson, beauteous 3l-yeat old thrice-married model, came to the conclusion that “all men are no good,” after a bruising evening with Arthur Dettner, Jr., 30, handsome San Francisco man about town. Although the evening started out in a quiet cocktails and candlelight mood, the action picked up toward midnight when the scene shifted (against Pat's wishes) to Dettner's apartment. There, Pat charges, Dettner stripped off her gown, flung her on the bed and announced that he intended to “have” her. “For the first time in my life,” the model said, “I thought of doing what I’ve always heard you should do, but if I had kicked him he would have killed me.” She said she struggled for nearly an hour, until an acquaintance of Dettner’s came to her rescue. Miss Knudson, in an_about- face, later decided not to press charges against Dettner HE DIDN’T LIKE THE PROGRAM. Albert Markle, $5 a male nurse, shot three people in a Hollywood hotel room after an argument set off by a TV program selection Markle, right photo, forced George Lawless, 58, to accom- pany him to the suite of Mrs. Juanita Simmons, 41, and het invalid father, Charles Piers. Markle had formerly nursed the elderly Piers, and had been succeeded by Lawless: Markle had also been smitten—and spurned—by Mrs. Simmons. When Markle entered their room, Mrs. Simmons and her father were watching TV. Markle immediately fell to arguing about their choice of program, Mrs. Simmons told Markle to leave. Markle, enraged, brandished a gun and began firing. Mrs. Simmons, left, was wounded critically; Piers and Lawless suffered leg wounds. Police later cornered the gunman while he was confessing his action to a priest

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wHO LOVES LUCY? Kenneth Darling, 31, for four years finaneed his life as a “gentleman of leisure” by rifling stars’ dressing rooms in film, radio and TV studios. The glib ex-con averaged $16,000 a year and lived in high style—until he ran into TV's Lucille Ball. Lucy, right, gave the police their first real lead on the long-sought “phantom burglar” when she surprised him in the act of rifling husband Desi \rnaz’ dressing room, Lucy let out a scream and the burglar fled, but not before Lucy got a good look at him. Police circulated her description of him and he was picked up a few weeks later, Darling, left, charged with committing some 500 burglaries, admitted to police that he would sometimes average as many as 10 “touches” a day. His biggest day in pocketbook prowling netted him $795, he said, commenting, “These people leave money lying around like it was going out of style.” Darling, who roamed through the studios carrying a script tucked under his arm, airily told police, “I don’t mind going up the river. Man, I’ve really lived!” END AS A MAN. Violet Marie Bradshaw’s 35-year mas- querade as a man, including marriage to another woman, came to a dramatic end in a Columbus, Ohio, courtroom. Judge Dana Reynolds had just sentenced “Vernon M. Brad- shaw” to a 1-10 year term in the men’s reformatory for em- bezzlement, when a man rushed into the courtroom and pleaded to be heard. Identifying himself as Patrick H. Brad- shaw, he told the judge: “Vernon is really a woman! She's my sister!" A physical examination proved the brother’s claim and the judge hastily directed that the prisoner be sent to the women’s reformatory instead. The prisoner, arrested, tried and convicted as a man, was surprised at all the excitement. “I have always considered myself a man,” she protested. As the prisoner was led away, Judge Reynolds exclaimed: “This is the strangest thing I’ve ever heard. How this woman could work and live as a man, all these years, without someone finding it out, is beyond me!” Violet, right, watches glumly as a deputy sets the record straight. CHICAGO SIEGE. Crouching behind autos and squad cars, Chicago police call for laundry owner Jimmy Lee, 39, to give himself up after he wounded two policemen and a truck driver in a gun battle inside his shop. Policemen Roman Steinke, 42, and Jeremiah Lucey, 61, entered the shop to arrest the Chinese owner, named in two assault warrants obtained by Stephen Malenk, 40, truck driver who accompanied the police. Malenk identified Lee in the shop and as the policemen moved to arrest him, Lee suddenly snatched up a pistol from under several laundry bundles and emptied the gun point-blank at the three men. Lucey fell, critically wourlded. Steinke, returning fire as Malenk helped Lucey to safety, was hit five times, but managed to crawl to the front door where he propped himself up and continued to shoot it out with Lee until police reinforcements arrived. After firing several dozen bursts into the shop, a party of besiegers broke down the rear door and wrestled the laun- dryman into submission. Both officers died of their wounds ATOMIC MURDER. Lucina Alvarado Tessada, 47, has been indicted in Mexico City on a charge of murdering her wealthy husband, Alfonso, by poisoning him with uranium. Sefior Tessada, 67, died suddenly three years ago. Under- takers who found it difficult to embalm the body—the veins and arteries had unaccountably hardened—reported to Isa- bel Tessada, the dead man’s daughter by an early mistress, that her father might have been poisoned. Sefiorita Tessada notified the police, but an ordinary autopsy showed nothing suspicious and the body was buried. Months later, still dis- turbed, the daughter got permission to exhume the body for further study. It was then that Mexican chemists discovered an alarming amount of radioactive material in the sefior’s body—atomic scientists have estimated that the dose would have cost at least $10,000! Isabel Tessada, right, holds a photo of her late father whom she says was murdered by her stepmother; Sefiora Tessada, left, protests her innocence to Judge Rojas—she violently denies the murder accusation. From all over the world, TRUE POLICE CASES' editors turn the crime- light on pictures and news flashes as they happen, right up to press time. hx oS

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RAPE TERROR RIDE The tale of horror which the beaten woman told police seemed incredible. It included murder, rape and kidnap! BY BILL SARGEANT

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Charged with murder of Amos Burgess, opposite page, Marvin Vaughan, above, has earned himself a “unique, bloody niche in the annals of Southwestern crime.” Mrs. Vaughan is held as an accessory. dey Ford, Midland, Texas service statior attendant, didn't know what to believe. The heavy-set woman in the back seat of the 195 Oldsmobile had leaned out of the car window ar had handed him a crumpled piece of paper. From her strained, anxious appearance, Ford could see that this wasn’t a joke. Her face bore marks of a he ating The woman was one of three persons in the Oldsmobile which had just driven up that Mon- day afternoon, February 15, 1954. The driver was a hawk-faced individual, He had ordered gasoline, His woman companion had stared traight ahead The note-passing incident had occurred when the couple im the front seat had alighted, leaving the heavy-set woman tn the rear of the car, The manner in which the note had been handed! to Ford made it clear to him that the woman didn’t want her companions to know about it Ford turned his back and read: Please help me out, They killed my husband, 1982 Oldsme bile, gray, Alabama 30-113 Incredulously, the station attendant rushed nto the garage as last he could without attract ng attention, Elastily, he telephoned the police and explained what had happened, When he finished, he looked out toward the car Ford saw his customer walking toward the tation, a dollar bill in his hand, Meanwhile, his worn companion, whom Foard noticed was j pregnant, climbed back inta the front seat. She wean talking to the woman whe had given Fard < amrn ig note As he counted out change for the stranger Fore tice that he was a slightly built young in with frank gray eyes, The gas attendant stalled, te give the I» lice time to arrive, The young mut, seemingly not hurried, weatt mck to} ‘ dl started it ap. He pulled to the ion driveway and came to a sud- car barred his exit Ar almost at once, and two more were on the sc The trio in the gray Oldsmobile offered no resistance. The couple in the front seat, in fact were pee to the police. The heavy-set woman helped fram the back seat of the car, was almost hysterical, She exclaimed over and over how thankiul she was that the police had arrived se soon ; how relieved she was to see them. The distraught woman said she was Mrs. Flora May Burgess, 35, formerly of Phoenix, Arisona Iya torrent of words, she taki an incredible story of muurder, rape and a horrifying twoxlay kidnap ride with the mild-appearing owner of the auto- mobile and his wife, Skeptical at first, the police were finally forced to beliewe, at least partially, the story related by Mrs. Burgess, because of her insistent pleading with them to take heed and because of her battered appearance Mra, Burgess’ eves were puffed and bruised and her nose lacerated and swollen. The note, scrawled with a hall-point pen on the back of a label from a package of paper cups, impressed the officers as having been written by a woman in dire distress, In the face of circumstances at hand, the au- thorities decided to hold, on the charge of in- vestigation for murder, the couple accused by the woman, They identified themselves as Marvin Vaughan, 30, and his wife, Ruby Ruth Vaughan, 28. At headquarters, Mra. Burgess n ber story, She said that her husband, Amos ence Horgess, 49, had been an unemployed lungber- jack, He had gy rahe: finding work in Nash- ville, Tennexsee, up their home in Phoenix, the Burgesses had started hitchhiking

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Midland County Deputy Charlie Bush, right, helped search for body of Amos Burgess, after listening to story related by victim’s wife, Flora May Burgess, left, shown with bruises she said she received at the hands of the rapist-murderer On Sunday morning, February 14, 1954, they were picked up in Globe, Arizona, by the Vaughans, Mrs. Burgess said. Until she was rescued, she had known her captors only as Marvin and Ruby. According to Mrs. Burgess’ statement, Vaughan, at about 3 o'clock Sunday afternoon, stopped the car in the searing southern New Mexico desert about seven and a half miles east of Lordsburg, New Mexico, on U. S. 80, He and Amos Burgess walked into the desert, climbing through a tight, four-strand barbed-wire fence in search of a filling station. They walked about 75 yards from the highway, then dis- appeared behind a low, sprawling mesquite bush. It was then, Mrs. Burgess reported that she heard two pistol shots slam through the warm afternoon. A moment later Vaughan appeared and walked back to the car, T raffic was zipping by on the busy highway, a main line for tourists in the land of the winter sunshine, and the chief link between El Paso, Texas, and the West Coast. Peering intently into the vegetation-sprinkled desert, Mrs. Burgess could make out her husband's feet protruding from behind the mesquite bush. “Your husband wants to see you,” Vaughan told her when he got back to the car. Mrs. Burgess, shocked and near hysteria, refused to go. “You've shot him,” she cried. “Is he dead?” , “He's as dead as he'll ever be,” he answered curtly. Then he got into the car, Unable to think of anything except to try to get away, Mrs. Burgess grabbed the suitcase containing the meager belongings of herself and her husband, and jumped out of the car, Vaughan forced her back in, using a Luger pistol to threaten her—the same one with which he had killed her husband. Through all this, according to Mrs, Burgess, Vaughan's wife, who was eight months’ pregnant, remained relatively calm, The little party continued east on Highway 80. Mrs Burgess sat crying in the back seat, and Mrs, Vaughan argued with her husband in the front seat. Finally Vaughan won the grisly argument and pulled off the highway again, about three miles east of the spot where Burgess’ body lay, with his blood soaking into the sand, “Come with me,” Vaughan ordered Mrs. Burgess, point- ing to a railroad culvert over a dry wash about 50 yards from the highway. “T refused,” Mrs, Burgess said later, “He told me again to come on but I said I wouldn't go unless his wife went with us.” Ruby Vaughan climbed out of the car and followed her husband and Mrs, Burgess. When the trio came to the barbed-wire fence, Mrs. Vaughan found that her condition prevented her from get- ting es Irritably, Vaughan demanded Mrs. Burgess to go with him, Looking into the vast reaches of the desert and seeing no escape, Mrs. Burgess feared a fate like her husband's, She accompanied Vaughan under the railroad bridge and there, under threat of atte she said she was forced to submit to his attack, While Vaughan was raping her, Mrs Burgess claimed, his wife, who had found a way through the fence, came upon them, : “Hurry up and get it over with, you so-and-so, and let's get out of here,” Mrs, Burgess quoted Mrs. Vaughan as saying to her husband. Mrs, Burgess claimed that the man wanted to rape her again, but that his wife produced a second pistol and forced him to go back to the car, “After Vaughan agreed to return to the Oldsmobile, his wife gave him the gun and he put it down in the sand to rest a minute,” Mrs, Burgess continued. “I grabbed it and fired it until all the bullets were gone, and then [ ran for the road as fast as | could.” The four or five shots had been lost in the emptiness. No one had heard them, to come to Mrs. Burgess’ aid. Vaughan caught her before she reached the fence, she said. and he beat her cruelly, ; Shocked and terrified, Mrs. Burgess rode quietly, search- ing always for a chance to escape, None presented itself, The three followed U, S. 80 east, past Deming, New Mex- ico, and they had not yet reached Las Cruces, in southern New Mexico’s Rio Grande Valley, when night fell. Somewhere between the two [Continued on page 79)

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London trembled in the grip of the Ripper; Montreal arms itself against the Slasher Muriel Boutet, above, with her parents, and Lise Cam- pagnot, below, were two of the 22 women slashed. Victims of a “flat-nosed, crazy-looking man,” were May MacDonald Grange, left, and Marcelle Gusson. Sex deviates indulge in many evil practices to gratify their warped egos. The sadist revels in the infliction of anguish; the masochist, in absorbing pain, and so on. But Montreal, Canada, came up with a new type of fiend—one who caused harm to hapless women to such an extent that mass hysteria rapidly spread throughout the vast metropolis, alerting police on what has been termed one of the biggest man hunts in recent Canadian criminal history. It all began January 22, 1954, when a young woman climbed aboard a morning bus on her way to work. No sooner had she seated herself then she felt a warm trickle flowing down her leg. A hasty examination showed that blood was seeping from a gash in the calf of her leg. At the hospital to which the girl was taken, it was determined that she had been slashed with a razor. This was the first of a similar pattern of slashings that continued with the weeks to come. Daily, the press took up the hue and cry as the number of victims mounted. In the space of the two weeks that followed, twenty-two women, ranging in ages from 14 to 40, were treated for cuts inflicted by the sexual psychopath. N All of the attacks took place during the peak rush hours, when buses and trolleys were jammed with women. The slasher usually struck as the women boarded the con- veyances, Finally, fearful of being victimized, women were allowing men to get on the buses and trams first. . A sour note to the investigation was struck when Police Inspector J. Albert Langlois announced that some of the slashings were self-inflicted, by women who sought notoriety, A roundup of sex criminals was completed, and several known deviates were held but later released. Whether due to the glare of publicity or to the vigilance of the police, the work of the slasher soon vanished and Montreal women returned to their daily routine—a little bit nervous lest he strike again, but generally hopeful that the reign of the slasher was through. —Joseph Thomason hp th aed f ioe a. ee ee | eee

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From acclaim as one of Hollywood’s glamorous stars to Drums and marijuana drove Gene Krupa to trouble, but solitude of jail cell was fate of Frances Farmer. . . he’s won a successfui fight away from dread habit. . . BY EARL J. ABBOTT Special Investigator for TRUE POLICE CASES There are those who say that movie stars, being exhibitionists by profession, must turn to booze, dope, sex and mayhem fo let off steam. Our reporter looked into the police records. What he learned about the secret lives of screen heroes and heroines is cnough to give a vice cop a large hangover!

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konnie Quillan ripped to ribbons, with a otazor, the face of popular singer. She charyed he tied rape Don let the movie censors or the police department fool you when they tell you Hollywood is cloan as a Cadillac, sweet as sunshine and pure as the flowors in May.... Despite a 24-year open war against sin, sex and sadism, waged by the autocratic Production Code Administra- tion of the Motion Picture Association of America (a high-sounding name!), Hollywood still wallows in a de- generacy that would shock those libertines who brought about the fall of the Roman Empire. Last summer, hard-hitting evangelist Jack Shuler blasted Hollywood's critics and shouted from within his canvas tent: Comeciin Allen Jeakins told court his cat, Smulev, was driving car when he was arrested tor drunk driving “Hollywood is the most maligned community in the world! Most of the sins laid at the doorstep of filmland have nothing whatever to do with representatives of the motion-picture industry!” Had the Reverend Jack Shuler taken a better look down Hollywood Boulevard, that one-way street of sor- row and false glitter, he might have heen less out- spoken, For, laid end to end, all the neurotic stars, bit players, producers and other movie makers ever to stretch the Golden Rule and the Production Code to the breaking point have created enough ribald confusion to give a vice cop a hangover.

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Though not so of dancer Vicki lucky, Lila Leeds, right, shares joy Evans, acquitted on marijuana charge. Rare photo of a tough guy crying. Bob Mitchum we as he and pal Robin Ford are arrested in dope sty Misfortune seems to haunt Lila Leeds. After she wed popular pianist Irv Rochlin, he went to prison for robbery. When rival saw Franchot Tone kiss Barbara Payton, he “blew his top,” and beat up Tone unmercifully. ed he <T¥is* Sygate gies Claimed Anne Sterling: “. . . he threw me down in his bedroom, lifted my skirt and beat me with a cane.” John B. Kingsley, crusading president of the Holly- wood Chamber of Commerce from 1940 to 1952, fougt. long and hard to clean up the film capital’s morals, and he still claims that Hollywood, person for person, is about ‘as moral as any town of its size in the nation. “We have as many churches, fine cultural and educational facilities and high-type citizens as the next town,” he says. “But whenever a film star gets into trouble, you know about it in South Africa.” How about those little transgressions of the movie stars? Are they really no different from you or me in their personal conduct? Take a look at the records and decide for your- self. Do you habitually use marijuana, heroin or other drugs? Are you addicted to alcohol? Do you carry your sex life into public places? No? Then stay away from Hollywood ! ; Those who look sympathetically on the problem of Holly- wood’s sin will tell you that movie people are dedicated to a world of unreality anyway, and being exhibitionists by profession, they just naturally turn to booze, dope and sex to let off steam. - Obviously, if a movie star lands in court or in jail, it becomes a matter of vital concern to the multimillion-dollar industry, because if an actor loses face with his public millions in lost box-office receipts can go down the gutter. That’s why the Motion Picture Producers and Distribu- tors of America, away back in 1930, adopted a get-tough policy and laid down a strict Production Code, to kee “i celluloid clean of filth. ; eae Many stars had moral-turpitude clauses written into their pera and a ‘ed given to heavy drinking, were as- signed permanent bodyguards to ! af Ais pal diate 8 keep them on the straight Fun is fun, even in Hollywood, but when fantastic sex parties, narcotic sessions and mayhem break out in the open

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homosexual; Rebel Randall was shocked to find she had married a she learned truth from her mother-in-law. i i i | ide line> he Castir director Maurice Golden had a side 1 prea Basked: girls like comely Eleanor Welgoss for vice setup + Be: ~ . When cops and photographers visited apartment of Terry Scott, she showed her ire by hurling kitchenware at them t th Who threw flowerpot at John Hall? Tommy Dorsey, Pat Dane, Allen Smiley wait to deny all charges His nose bruised, brawny screen actor Jon Hall gives his version of Hollywood's sensational “battle of the balcony.”

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Tossed into jail as a drunk, actor Robert Newton enter- tained police with repeat of his Long John Silver film role Gail Russell, shown with policewoman Irene Locker, blames her erratic behavior on “severe emotional strain Tough Willie Bioff, Chicago hood, who muscled into Holly- wood and clipped a group of movie studios for $1,800,000. Ware quickly granted her the annulment and insisted that her attorney withdraw the damage suit. As tragic as that marriage turned out, it wasn’t half so shocking as some of the other capers pulled off in the movie capital by big shots and little shots who really should know better. One pretty 25-year-old prostitute ran a cozy little call house a short beer-bottle toss from fabled Sunset Strip, where Hollywood’s young bucks who hear the male call can get a girl at the dial of a phone number. Hers was a $100-a-trick business, and her clientele obviously were not bums. One warm summer night last year, police swung Tarzanlike onto her balcony and entered her apartment uninvited in time to catch her and a prom- inent business executive together, in the nude. They sent the gent packing off home to his worried little wife, who wondered why he stayed out late nights, and arrested the young lady for doing what comes naturally, but for money. She pleaded not guilty to the beef and a trial date was set for February 25, 1954. But the payoff was a file of select names of customers that read like a Film Players’ Almanac. ‘ It included names of the adventurous san of a hotel- chain owner, the proprietor of a Las Vegas hotel and—ot all people—the son of one of the board members of thx movie-censoring Production Code Administration If that seems like hypocrisy, don’t blame the boss of rt Production Code enforcement section, tough, whitc-: } ‘aired Joseph Breen, Breen the ¢ to be Hollywood got rar ot After socialite actor Sonny tank, he explained to cops, Tufts was tossed into the arunk My wife's a little mad at me.”

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Don Cougar served a term for narcotics possession. He told court whereabouts of pal quizzed in the. 1ip through the influence of Will H. Hays, former MPAA ezar, who was an attorney for a Chicago coal company when Breen handled its publicity. . For 23 of the Production Code’s 24 years’ history, Breet has been its able administrator, empowered to slap $25,000 fines on those who buck the Code, which covers crime, sex vulgarity, obscenity, profanity, costumes, dances, religion, locations, national feelings, titles and “repellent subjects.’ normally gets full co-operation from producers d the MPAA stamp of approval to survive; but o1 yne occasion at least, a movie company felt he had gone too f autocratic power. In January, 1941, Breer 1 for $1,500,000 by Criterion Picture Corporation ging he exerted an illega monopoly in banning a film ibout syphilis entitled "Damaged Goods.” But despite this rigid control over movie production, it eems there is nothing Hollywood can do about its stars on their time off when they ride roughshod over the Ten Commandments, which Breen doesn't administer Eyen in working hours, libertine activitic gro on within the sacred portals of Hollywood studios Take the case of casting director Maurice Goldet a genial 53-year old gent whose job it was to interview pretty girl ecking fame and fortune in film at the Mottor cture Center Studio Jot long agro, two Hollywood vice officers went to see Go n and got fixed up with a date with one of the girl tile From the long lst of aspiring young. actresses ‘ $20 “escort they [Continued on roe 7O} . Robert Walker, $2,000-a-week bobby sox idol, fought osing battle with an odd inner emotional torment 1 G7, PEROT: ; See ee slaying of Abe Davidian, seen with Coroner H. K. Doty. Abe was to squeal about Hollywood dope route Lawrence Tierney fell under doctor's care because movie tans expected him to be real-life image of killer Dillinger Hollywood's most obnoxious drunk, movie tough guy Law rence Tierney, spits at reporters as he's jailed for 15th time ti

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What's it like to ¢rail a dead-shot murderer in a thicket where it means to kill or be killed? The author brings you EXCLUSIVE photographs and an on-the-scene report | tracked a I, was a cold Saturday afternoon in January, and con- versation in the little country store had shifted to a popular winter topic: hunting, and the prowess with a rifle of a 55-year-old woodsman neighbor named Jack Strachan, “T guess he’s as good as there are in all Texas,” one of the younger men was saying. “I’ve seen him throw matches in Bassett Creek and shoot the heads off of them before they floated a foot in that swift water.” The storekeeper nodded. “I never see him but he’s carry- ing five or six squirrels he’s shot clean through the head.” The strange, quiet hunter was a legend for miles around the little northeast Texas backwoods community of Bassett. He was living, at the time, with his daughter, Mrs. Holland Pritchett, at the nearby community of Corley. He had been staying there, off and on, since he and his wife, Josie, had become estranged nearly two years before. Josie and their four young children had remained in Bassett, about eight miles away. One of the men mentioned that lately Strachan had been brooding over the separation. He said there was talk that Jack was threatening to kill his whole family, unless his 44-year-old wife went back to him. “He ain’t been the same since that kid of theirs got killed on the highway,” another neighbor cut in. ‘‘Seetns like he still blames Josie for it, somehow or another. “You can’t tell about Jack. You never know what he’s thinking.” One of the younger men took a long swallow, then put his soft-drink bottle back into a case on the floor. “I know one thing,” he grinned. “If somebody told me Jack SLIPPERY HILLER BY BOB BRISTER, Marshall (Tex.) NEWS MESSENGER Opposite page, end of man hunt came when Patrolman Lacy Thomasson, trousers water-stained by marshes, was faster on trigger than sharpshooting killer, foreground. Veteran Texas Ranger S. Stanley, right, gives Lacy reassuring hand. Above, left, officers and witnesses at spot where Patrolman Hanna, far right, died in ambush. Center, police close in, ra

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Strachan was after me with that rifle of his, I wouldn't low down this side of California! ‘Tf he starts anything with Josie, I allow he'll finish itogs eats It was surprising, with all the talk, that a few days afterward—on Monday, January 25, 1954—no one seemed to notice the tall, stooped figure hunched against the wind and walking down the side of the highway early in the morning. He was carrying a rifle as casually as if it were a part of him. ‘ No one remembers seeing Jack Strachan walk into the yard of his wife’s unpainted frame house beside the high- way, or seeing him cross the highway, a few minutes later, to a neighbor’s home where Josie had gone to visit. When he knocked at the door and asked for her, Josie came hesitantly to the threshold. She saw the gun and drew back inside. “Pyt down the rifle, Jack, and I'll talk to you,” him nervously. He stood silently in the yard, watching her. And perhaps it was a new light she saw in the steady dark eyes. Or a premonition, Suddenly she shrank in terror and backed into the house. Jack Strachan was behind her, his shoulder forcing open the door. For a fleefing second he looked at her. But the gun never wavered as it came up, swiftly and perfectly, steadied, and spat fire into the little room. : Josie Strachan pitched forward into a chair, clutching at her face—and the gaunt figure with the rifle backed unhurriedly out the door, walked off into the woods and disappeared. When Mr. and Mrs. Charlie McDonald, terrified, turned their guest over in a pool of blood, their fears were con- firmed. She had been shot .. . as Jack Strachan generally shot his game . . . squarely between the eyes. F News and gossip travel fast in a backwoods community. And when State Highway Patrolman W. O. Hanna arrived from the nearby town of New Boston shortly afterward, his investigation was already partially made. He was shown the direction in which Strachan had walked away from the McDonald house. And he was told of Strachan’s threats to “kill the whole family.” : Hanna knew Strachan, and @ie knew that either Sid or Douglas Smith—Josie’s brother and stepbrother would be the next logical victim on the list of “family” tha Strachan had sworn to kill. : Familiar with the man as he was, the patrolman sence it was a matter of time. The killer’s long, leisurely stride she told Photo, below, left, was taken by author as he and police ra out to Patrolman Thomasson by C. Morgan. The Mor was deceptively fast. He was tall, six feet two inches, and long legged. That loping stride always carried him wherever he went in a hurry, hunting or to the store. He had no car, but he knew every short cut in the woods. There was, however, one hope: if the patrolman could reach the Smiths in time to warn and protect them. Hanna had once befriended Strachan, When the woodsman’s four- year-old child had been killed on the highway—the same incident that had caused the initial strife between Strachan and his wife—Hanna investigated the accident. And he did the family a great service in helping them obtain a satisfactory insurance adjustment. “Maybe I can get to him before he gets to some of the rest of them,” Hanna remarked to his patrol-car partner, Patrolman James Hinsley. ‘‘Maybe I can talk sense to him.” Siren open, the two officers sped over rough dirt roads to the little house beside the railroad where Sid Smith, Josie’s brother, lived. Following in another patrol car were Deputy Sheriff Carl Elliott and state game warden John Arthur Shadduck. In a third car was Douglas Smith, stepbrother of Josie Strachan and Sid Smith. It was Douglas who had confirmed Hanna’s belief that Jack would attempt to make Sid the next on his list. The three cars stopped at the silent little house beside the tracks. Watching them coolly from his ambush behind a scrub oak thicket was Jack Strachan. He had lain waiting for Smith to return from work on the railroad. But the officers had come first. As Hanna opened the car door to go up to the house, he detected a movement in the thicket. It was a glimpse of the departing woods-wise Strachan, melting into the almost impenetrable thicket beside the tracks.* “There he goes!” Hanna shouted, racing down an open fence row beside the thicket. Patrolman Hinsley and the other two officers ran in the other direction down the dirt road toward the tracks, trying to cut Strachan off before he could cross the railroad ties. The ominous whine of a hollow-point .22 slug cut the air, then another and another, Hinsley, Elliott and Shad- duck hit the ground and piled into a ditch, bark from nearby trees dusting around their ears. Hanna was still running down the fence row, trying to make his objective, a narrow strip of open terrain where Strachan’s concealing thicket parted, and where the killer must cross into the open to get away. “Come out, Jack,” Hanna pleaded. “I want to talk to you.” There was no answer, and the [Continued on page 74) n in pursuit of slayer Jack Strachan, headed in direction pointed gans, right, and the author were last to see killer alive.

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4 ap er ‘+ , when he was pinned down and Esten Ray at spot where killer made last stand. 2 o & o u 3 c a 5! a a Fi a °o o = Es io] 2 Ea 2 o a o 2 3 ° <= kb i) a a) 3 vo z a wo 5 & .) £ & 5 <= uo) eo = & ~ eo = 5 A) q by gunfire. Above, Patrolmen Lacy Thomasson, pointing, : Parle: a* A

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G iors for many years, have either been a great boon —or a thorn in the side of the residents of the great sea- port city of Norfolk, Virginia. There was a time, indeed, when the more outspoken citizens perched on their front lawns and places of business the sign: “Sailors and Dogs Keep Out!” The annoyance felt by the more choleric residents is perhaps understandable. Because of the proximity of the U. S, Naval Operating Base and the Naval Air Station, seamen—when the fleet is in—literally take over the main street of the community, crowding out the slow- moving folk from buses, shops and the sidewalks. And where there are sailors on liberty, one is bound to find more than the usual amount of carousing, excite- ment and violence. It has become more or less routine with the police department to look for a “boy in blue” whenever a crime is committed—especially if it involves a woman. On such occasions, East Main Street, with its burlesque theater and its hot spots, becomes the center of a dragnet until the criminal is caught. This was the situation at 8:30 o’clock on the gloomy, Below, the Addingtons, Dor often warned the reckless war bride, opposite page, to stay away PLAYGIRL rain-swept morning of January 22, 1954, after T. O. Hartman, a businessman, strolling rapidly to his usual bus stop at the corner of Colonial and Raleigh Avenues in the residential section of Norfolk, happened to glance into a narrow alleyway adjacent to a yellow-framed two- story residence—No. 808 Colonial—and- spotted a bizarre object on the ground. Peering closer, Hartman saw that it was the body of a woman. Her green coat, awry, had been bunched around her head, and only her shoeless silk-clad legs and part of her purple sweater were visible. There was no evi- dence of blood or of a scuffle. Hartman assumed that the woman was drunk. He walked up on the porch of the neat-looking frame house and pushed the front door bell. To Mrs, William Fleetwood, the owner, Hartman told of his discovery. Very much concerned, the pleasant- faced woman, who operates a boardinghouse for young women, shook her head. ‘It can’t be any of my girls; they are all inside having breakfast.”” At Hartman’s sugges- tion, Mrs. Fleetwood telephoned the police. Ina matter of minutes, a patrol car manned by Officers een and her husband, Joseph, were intimate friends of the slain butterfly. They from the perils of the Norfolk night life.

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= BY TED THOMPSON News Editor, the Lynchburg NEWS The Australian war bride liked her fun, but she knew where to draw the line. This was something the sex-tortured, blackjacking slayer learned too late

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Murdered girl’s friend told of last seeing her talking to two sailors in shadow of church buildin But otime body was found in areaway of frame house, right. Opposite page, Det. L. Benton eat Left, Captain Harry Gornto, detective chief. His directorship of case brought speedy solution. Detective Jack Morse found clue that broke killer’s alibi.

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r. H. Davis and M. F. Gamble pulled up at the curb. With the rain beating against their slickers, the patrol- men crouched down in the areaway, and gently lifted the coat from the woman’s head, The sight that met theit eyes sent them back to their car, where they radioed headquarters for the morgue wagon and for the skilled brains of the homicide squad. This was no case of a drunk sleeping off a binge—murder had been committed. Under the woman's coat, the officers had seen the puffed features of a once attractive woman who had been beaten to death. Like a well-drilled squadron, the efficient team of officers began assembling at the scene. First to arrive were chief of detectives, Captain Harry Gornto, a taciturn, highly capable crime fighter; his homicide chief, Detective Sergeant Er- nest Towe, and Detective Earl Neighbors. On their heels came Dr. C, O. Barclay, the medical examiner, and then laboratory expert, Patrolman Reid Carawan, loaded with equipment. Carawan quickly set up his camera and began shooting photographs of the body, the aHey and the surrounding area. Meanwhile, each of the detectives was performing his own specialty. Captain Gornto and Sergeant Towe searched for clues, while Detective Neighbors began questioning Hart- man and Mrs. Fleetwood in preparation for his report on the finding of the corpse. With the removal of the coat from the slain woman’s head, Gornto noted that she was comparatively young— around 20 or 25 years old—that in life she had been unques- tionably beautiful and that she possessed a voluptuous figure. Her reddish-brown hair was-matted with blood. Be- sides the green coat and purple sweater, the woman wore a gray skirt. Near her stockinged feet lay a pair of low- quarter oxfords. What caught the detective chief’s attention, however, was the fact that two nails on the fingers of her right hand were broken. This, he felt, indicated that the slayer might bear some identifying mementos of his deed. From a leather purse which lay near the body, Gornto removed a doctor’s prescription form. This should have proved an excellent means of identifying the woman—but, in the sort of handwriting which seems characteristic of doctors filling out prescriptions, the name was legibly scrawled. All the detectives could decipher was that the name began with "D-a.” However, the physician’s name vas printed on the form. * ’ Gauta handed the slip to Detective Neighbors, instructed him to phone the doctor for the information which he hoped would identify the woman. — ; ae. The purse contained nothing else of an identifying nature. There were no keys, money, or the usual feminine accouter- ments. Only a pearl choker necklace, which matched a simi- lar piece on the woman's wrist. ; as At this point, Dr. Barclay completed his preliminary examination of the body. He declared that the woman had been bludgeoned with a blunt instrument, wielded with ferocious force; that she had been dead for approximately six to eight hours. “This,” the doctor stated, “would put her death somewhere around midnight, Thursday. With the removal of the corpse to the Norfolk General Hospital for an autopsy, Gornto turned his attention to the possibility of other clues on the scene. However, the search proved unproductive, for the heavy rainfall during the night had washed away all footprints and any other possible dis- tinguishable marks. Meanwhile, none of the officers were able to locate anyone in the neighborhood who had wit- nessed or heard anything unusual during the previous eve- ning. Mrs. Fleetwood could offer no assistance toward the identity of the girl. Adjacent td Mrs. Fleetwood’s home, at Nos. 810 and 812, are two stone houses, once substantial residences of wealthy occupants, now cut up into smaller, individual apartments. Here, too, the officers had been un- successful in gaining new details; at 812, no one seemed to be at home. The canvass of the area was interrupted by the return of Detective Neighbors. He was relieved at having tracked down the victim’s identity. He had described the woman to the doctor who had issued the prescription. Without hesi- tation, the physician had informed the detective that she was Mrs. Patricia Davis, residing in the Imperial Apartments on Freemason Street. “Better. get over there and check,’ Gornto directed Neighbors. “We'll talk to a few more people in this neigh- borhood and then meet you back at headquarters.” It was now 10 am., and the streets were becoming crowded with people on their way to work and with sailors returning to their barracks and ships. The sight of the police cars and the excitement that al- ways attends the scene of an accident or a crime had at- tracted a good share of passersby. At this commotion, a tall, striking-looking blonde appeared in the doorway of No. 812. She was clad in a silken robe which indicated that she had just been aroused from her sleep. ; Detective Towe, who had tried to arouse someone from that building earlier, walked over to her. In answer to his question, the blonde replied that she was Mrs. Doreen Addington ; the fact that she was a very sound sleeper ac- counted for her not having heard Towe's ringing of the doorbell previously, When Towe described the clothes worn by the murdered girl, Mrs, Addington grew disturbed. “Why, that’s what ‘ Pat was wearing last night when she was visiting us!” Detective Towe summoned Captain Gornto and the two men escorted the woman inside. When she was comfortably seated in her kitchen, the detective chief asked her to give them all the information she could that might help them in the case, Struggling hard to control her emotions, Mrs. Addington explained that she and Patricia Davis had been childhood friends in Sydney, Australia. Ten years before they had met two American sailors, Joseph Harold Addington and Leslie Davis. It had been a case of love at first sight for both couples, and matrimony had followed, shortly after the war. Their husbands had sent for [Continued on page 77}

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24 h tr ‘ f ‘ g r ' , £ € tract +} ( ae it g t o ' - ‘ « f forr _ I ke } k atreak egs, out into the night That the cat had bee g comed the chance to fice, struck The officers stared grimly about. Tl \ handsome ble lamp lay the f the ol Chair ere é There « furniture, walls The evide t the r once been propetly tended was the pile of logs neatly stacked alongside the open fireplace Sergeant R. P. Kea anc me ( wer tracks ¢ clotted blood into the kitchen, a shiny, ult odern affair with all t latest conveniences. The shelv were neatly stacked dishe d canned goods, silver filed methodically in a drawer as if some meticulous maid had been at work, But there was blood here, too, And an empty beer bottle, alongside two used glasses on the drain board The fingerprint men might find a valuable clue there Back in the living room; Kealy pointed to still more blood a small hallway. The trail led through the too, was a shambles. Blood on the walls and carpet, A mattress thrown out of place. Furni- ture knocked over, drawers open, clothes strewn about. Kealy tried the closet door. It was locked. He sprang the lock and threw the door open, Out flopped a pair of legs that had apparently been shoved inward when the door was lammed shut The officers, seasoned as they were, shuddered. Jammed into the closet lay the bound and gagged figure of a man, about 30. It took but a moment to determine that the bat- tered, lacerated mass had no life in it. Turning to Officer J. A. Barber, Sergeant Kealy tersely instructed, “Call homicide!” The time was 9 p.m., Wednesday, February 10, 1954. The place: 3844 Benedict Canyon, Sherman Oaks, Cali- fornia, Technically part of metropolitan Los Angeles, Sherman Oaks is a gilt-edge mountain-ringed community in breath-taking San Fernando Valley. Here live movie prints, leading to hall and into a bedroom, It Sees * riddle of the fleeing ian —— Betty Levin went to fiance’s home to learn why he had failed to keep lunch date; she made shocking discovery,

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pY DAVID DREW Hollywood has produced many fantastic crime plots in which a man has been murdered for reasons hard to believe. In this real-life slaying, it is proved that fact is indeed much stranger than fiction David L. Johnston was a friendly sort of fellow, but his generosity gained him a cruel death. His beaten body was found jammed in a clothes closet, trussed and gagged with strips torn from a bed sheet.

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a moguls and actors, radio and television personalities, top- flight writers and better-than-wealthy businessmen, Many have escaped from equally swank but more densely popu- lated Beverly Hills, for the joys of purple mountains, erim- son sunsets and natural settings for back-yard swimming pools. The regal tone of the community is underscored by the fact that its honorary mayor is bemonocled actor Charles Coburn. It was to Sherman Oaks that Sergeants Al Ortiz and C. S. Stewart sped after Barber’s call to the Valley de- tective bureau at Van Nuys, the Los Angeles Police De- partment station serving this part of the San Fernando Valley. They drove up quiet, sedate Benedict Canyon, found the neat stucco house, nestled against a hill. It was not palatial, but impressive, with the manicured front and back lawns characteristic of the area. Inside, Kealy briefed the homicide detectives, who then looked over the premises. The furnishings were in excellent taste, of first quality. The décor showed sophisticated dis- crimination. Everywhere was evidence that a terrific struggle had taken place, the victim fighting his assailant from room to room, desperately seeking to avoid the fate that had met him in the closet. The body lay face down, head toward the back, at a grotesque angle, jammed against the wall when the man was crammed into the closet. The wrists and ankles were tied with strips torn from bed sheets. The same material formed a vicious gag plugged into the mouth and wound back be- hind the neck, where it was tied into a knot. The corpse was fully dressed, in slacks and gray sweater. The face and head had suffered a terrible beating. “Who is he, Pat?” Ortiz asked Kealy. The two men had worked many a case together, had respect and affection for each other. “He’s David L. Johnston. A movie producer or talent scout.” : Ortiz whistled. There would be plenty of heat from the newspapers on this one! “Who called it in?” he asked. “A neighbor, Frank Argall. Said he opened the door, saw blood... .” “Coroner been called?” “Sure. Everybody else, too. They’re on the way.” At which point the latent print man and police photogra- Officer J. R. Squires views 2%4-inch-thick firewood log used as lethal weapon by slayer of handsome movie scout. pher arrived, followed by Lieutenant E. W. Smith, in charge of homicide. , “Hello, skipper!’ Ortiz called to the lieutenant, “Nice mess we’ve got here!” As the photographer and fingerprint man went to work, the detectives went over the house inch by inch. There were no signs of forced entry. Every door and window was locked. s “Johnston knew the killer,” Stewart theorized. “He ex- pected him, let him in. They had some beer, then the visitor murdered Johnston and left. He slammed the front door behind him. It works on a spring lock.” “How. did you get in, Pat?” Lieutenant Smith asked. “Mr. Argall and a girl friend of Johnston’s let us in,” “Where are they?” “In Mr. Argall’s house. Waiting for us. They know what we found—in there.” He jerked a thumb toward the closet. Meanwhile, in the bedroom, Ortiz stooped over, then pointed, Although unemployed, victim had to live in style expected of persons associated with Hollywood world of make believe.

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7 , Left, Chief Lee H hes Officer Gene Garrison struggle with Bob Densmore, after youth’s companion, Ronald Toney Matted right, patnted pee 7 the one who clubbed to death talent scout. Densmore denied the accusation. “There's your weapon !” he said. ; On the floor lay a piece of log, obviously from those stacked at the fireplace, It was about 20 inches long, 24 inches in diameter, And all over it was blood, Blood, and - human hair. The fingerprint man entered. “What you got?” Stewart asked, a “Quite a few prints, Don’t know if they’re any good. Found some on the glasses, a few on the beer bottle. The walls are full of prints, mostly smudged, though. Got a couple of good ones off a clothes hanger.” The investigation of the house was completed. Except for the log and the prints, there were no immediate clues to the identity of the murderer. ; f “What do you make of it, skipper ?” Ortiz asked. The lieutenant shrugged. ‘Too early to tell. No woman did this job, that’s for sure. A powerful man did, Might even have been more than one.” | “What would the motive be?” Stewart asked. “Maybe a grudge, maybe revenge, maybe robbery. We don’t know what was here, so we don’t know whether any- thing was taken. No money around, None on the body, Clothes? Pretty penny ante to lead to a murder, Still, it could be. From the look of those dresser drawers and the empty clothes hangers, this might have been just that, a robbery. Or maybe there's a love angle here. Movie per- sonality, handsome guy, in the chips, the ladies find him attractive—you know. r “Yeah,” Stewart nodded. ‘“Who’s that girl who came Oo e Ld MiLes ale to her,” Smith suggested. “And let’s find out who David L, Johnston is—was. What he did. Who his friends were,” . At the neighbors’ house, they found Mr. and Mrs. Frank Argall and‘a near-h sterical’ young woman, Betty Levin. She was 29, dark-haired, attractive aig chic. She was too distraught to givé a coherent statement. Frank Agni told the detectives that Betty had come to him earlier that evening, saying she was afraid to enter pobnatoate house alone. % was he, who, at Betty’s request, C, : “ as ae Died Johnston ?” Ortiz asked him. “Oh, yes! A fine gh La i 8 aay : emies that you eh “he aed Whe moet he have enemies?” Argall de- | PT init’ noticed anything out of the ordinary at the Johnston house today—but then, he had been away most of the time. Nor had he so much as caught a glimpse of David Johnston that day, although his wife might have, he said. Mrs, Argall was quite distraught herself. She had at- tended a funeral, was still very much upset, unable to mobilize her thoughts, She'd try to help though, she assured the detectives. But she doubted that she knew anything that would serve as a clue, No, she hadn’t seen Johnston at any time that day, Didn't know whether he was in or out of his home. As Mrs. Argall spoke, she twisted a handkerchief in her hands distractedly. “Did you,” Ortiz inquired, “‘see anyone come into the house—a man—or a woman ?”’ Betty Levin leaned forward, breathless, for the answer. “N-no,” Mrs, Argall decided. “You were home all day ?” Ortiz pressed. ; “Y-yes. Oh, no! Not exactly! That reminds me. Why, yes! T saw him—or somebody—drive his car out. Yes!” “His car?” “Yes, A green Packard,” Betty nodded agreement, “What time was it that you saw the cat drive out?” the sergeant asked, “Well... I remembered when you asked me if I’d been out of the house, I vaguely remember seeing the car drive — out sometime between 11 :30 a.m. and 3 p.m, And I know I left the house at 3 o'clock to pick u my boy at school, and Mr, bapaag on car was gone then, t Maybe . .. maybe I saw it leave about 2 p.m. That’s as close as I can remember,” f “Who drove it? Mr. Johnston?” Smith cut in. “I really don’t know. I just didn’t notice. I just assumed he must be driving,” Sergeant Ortiz then tried to question Betty again ; but she was still too much upset emotionally. The lieutenant sug gested that Ortiz bring her to the office at headquarters, Before he left, Ortiz made a search, found the Johnston Packard nowhere in evidence, arranged that Kealy send out an all-state alarm on it. At least that was missing, and not a moment should be lost in tracing it, Within minutes, the alarm crackled over the wires ; “Pick up and hold for investigation of murder all occu- pants of a 1953 Packard sedan, possibly green in color, California license 1V95697, motor No. 3H, Regis- tered to David L. {rbatton, 3844 Benedict Canyon. Susp. « may be ca » Di David L, Toundan, vehicle found abandoned, stake [Continued on page 54] t wasn't in his garage. | eT vane Ln Pre er oa , es

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<ot enee ers Using shapely girls from carnival shows as lures, “Little Joe” separated free-spending soldiers from their pay. Below, Sheriff John Stanley broke $46,160 mystery; Bess Leakway, hurt in crash, sought nice burial for her dog.

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littie joe's BY CARL GADDIS i g Kk. an end to Little Joe’s lucky streai he tbtnnceakies where gambler hid money in air vent. The sheriff grew suspicious when mysterious ‘visitors showed more interest in the wrecked car than in the four victims. An investigation turned up $46,160 in a secret compartment, and an amazing girlie-lure gambling racket At a dangerous rate of speed, the 1953 Oldsmobile shot atong the sunlit Georgia highway toward the city of Wrens. It was Sunday, January 24, 1954. Inside the car, the driver, James “Little Joe” Green, and his four companions laughed merrily, without a thought as to the grim fate that Lady Luck held in store for them. Had they known, Little Joe would have felt far differently about being so lucky. He was a well-known gambler, a fun-loving guy of 35 who did magic with ivory cubes, Magic enough to earn the title he boastfully bore. Four on a pair of dice is supposed to be a hard point to make. To Little Joe, they were as simple as breathing. . The four other people in the car with him were Sergeant Benjamin Smith Leakway, 33, an enlisted man attached to the Hunter Air Force Base near Savannah; Leakway’s wife, Bessie, 33; Hubert Lee Gibson, 36, and Ella Grace Parker 25. No one in this congenial group paid particular attention to Little Joe’s reckless speed. “Lady Luck sure is smiling at me these days,” Little Joe commented, “TH bet she is,” the soldier agreed. “As long as Lil’s in prison on that federal rap—but she'll be sprung soon and then watch out—the fur’ll fly |” The group laughed heartily at this, They knew that Joe’s wife was serving time in the women's reformatory at Atlanta, for income tax evasion on the proceeds the govern- ment charged she had made while operating a house of ill repute in Savannah, Georgia. Thirty-seven thousan¢ dollars in one year—the government figures—is a lot of money for a woman to make without paying taxes—no matter what the commodity may be! “T'll explain everything to Lil,” Joe promised. “Leave that to nre!” But Joe didn’t explain to Lil, and he never will, Not in this world; for on the next curve the sedan went out of control and over an embankment, Mrs, Bessie Leakway, wife of the Air Force man, was the only survivor—and she was hospitalized with near- fatal injuries. Sheriff John Stanley, veteran [Continued on page 48] 4

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~~! i Although they were born of different worlds, fate decreed t ; Weinberg, left, would walk into the lives of Maaweelt eg dg re Fagan, below, and that he would end the nomadic, seedy, existence prredie a. te eg 4 “hy 5 ree ais} Eo £4 > fi

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Virginia Drew, Dorothy Dear and Aimee Cortez, who entrusted their love and their ambitions to the rebel poet Bodenheim. He accepted their love, but cast their ambitions into a whirlpool of tragedy. The murder of the once brilliant writer is a crude one. But the history of the man's” flight to fame, the tale of the tragic women who died because of him, and the meteoric fate that was to plummet him to a humiliating downfall—these make absorbing reading \ ell, who are they?” New York City’s Chief of Detectives Thomas E. Nielson demanded of Albert Luck. “You ought to know your tenants. You're the manager of this building.” Luck looked down in bewilderment at the emaci- ated, unkempt corpse sprawled on the floor, a bullet through its chest. The wound was partially con- cealed by a pocket edition of Rachel Carsons’ The Sea Around Us. The manager's glance shifted to the bed. There a second corpse lay, a woman who appeared to be in her early 30s. The manager moved backward, sidestepping the pool of blood which had seeped through the foul mattress to the floor, to mingle with the blood of the first corpse, Since there was no obvious wound to be seen on the woman, it became apparent that the blood had come from her back. Though her face had been beaten to a pulp, the men looking down at her no- ticed traces of her dark beauty. “T never saw them before,” Luck ‘insisted. “They didn’t rent this room. It was a fellow named Wein- berg who rented it. This is a respectable rooming house.” A sarcastic glint lighted the eyes of one of the detectives. “I suppose these two people just slipped in to find a place to get themselves knocked off. “This is a respectable rooming house,” Luck re- veated doggedly. 5 ’ “Are va sure this isn’t Weinberg?” the ofheer prodded : ; ; The manager shook his head. “No. Weinberg’s a good-looking young fellow, maybe 25 or 26, This man looks 70.” This was Sunday, February 7, \ BY FRANCES LIPSIG 1954, 4:15 in the afternoon at 97 Third Avenue, New York City. The fifth-floor walk-up on the fringes of the Bowery in downtown Manhattan was one of a row of dingy, stingy-looking flophouses, untended, unheated. There’s not much further down you can go, even on Skid Row. Detective Chief Nielson ordered a search of the room. It didn’t take long. Over in the corner, propped against the wall, was a shabby brief case stuffed with handwritten poetry, A crudely printed placard, 1 AM BRIND, lay upended on the floor. On the single rocky table there were a few scribbled verses, a pad of paper, some pencils. There was not a sign of a weapon in the room, An empty wine bottle completed the meager inventory. Devend that—only death, “This,” said Chief Nielson with unconscious irony, “is definitely not a robbery motive.” One of the detectives lifted the edge of the soiled, papery affair which went by the name of blanket and which had been used temporarily to blot out the sight of the dead girl's face. “Ever see her before ?” “No sir,” Luck answered. It was Luck who had summoned the poli after receiving a message from the janitor at his home, 87 East Third Street. “There's nobody in that room,” the janitor had reported. “Nobody cores and nobody goes, Must be something wrong.” Luck had arrived on the run, only to holine dGut of the room padlocked on the outside. He hadn't liked the look of that. Vagrant ten- ants of these rooming houses tend to lie around their rooms most of

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32 the day, When they’re not seen around, they're definitely not out of town on business or pleasure. They haven't the fare or the friends. They're either dead drunk—or just plain dead. Either way, the boss investigates Winded from his five-flight climb, Luck the door. Silence. He got some tools and sawed through the padlock hasps to force open the door. Entering, he tripped, almost stumbling over the body on the floor. It was then that he sighted the second corpse on the bed, and placed the call to headquarters. ; “There’s not a speck of food here the chief wanted to know : ; “He didn't live,” offered one of the morbid curious crowd- ing the door, “Look at him.” The emaciated creature on the floor looked as though he hadn't eaten ina month. F “A hobo, probably,” someone speculated. “But who's the hammered at How did.they live?” woman ?” A few newcomers had been attracted to the scene. One moved forward, peering intently into the face of the dead man. “My God! It’s Bodenheim! And the woman on the bed must be Ruth, his wife!” ‘ It was. The slipshod figure sprawled untidily on the flop- house floor, without dignity, his shirt slashed up the back, his clothes threadbare and soiled, a neat little Band-Aid covering a small cut on his arm... this was Maxwell Bodenheim, leader of Chicago’s literary revolt back in the 20s, a moving voice in the notorious Dill Pickle Club—one- time intimate of the greatest names in contemporary litera- ture—the corpse that could have gone down in history as an immortal ! But the police were not, of course, familiar with the fabulous career of the apparent derelict and his lady lying dead. It remained for Homicide, mainly through the efforts of Chief Inspector Stephen Kennedy, to unravel its threads. Stalking the lives of great artists, there has sometimes seemed to be a kind of dark destiny that awaits its moment until the poet, the novelist, the dramatist, has reached peak. Then swiftly it brushes by him and ends the poem, the play, the story in sudden, violent death. The poet Shelley died a violent and mysterious death in a raging thunderstorm, drowned in Italian waters. F. Scott Fitzgerald, biographer of the jazz age, died of delirium tremens. In his heyday, Bodenheim basked in adoration of women; as a dissolute hobo, evicted from home, he had only Ruth. ras And Christopher Marlowe, famed dramatist of Shake. speare’s times, was killed in a brutal barroom brawl, Dipsomania marked the end for Edgar Allan Poe. And now—Maxwell Bodenheim, whose works were scarcely free from savagery and violence, onetime leader of America’s literary ground breakers . . . comrade-in. arms of such world-renowned writers as Shaemus O’Shee}, Edgar Lee Masters, Carl Sandburg, and most particularly Ben Hecht. ... f In 1928, Maxwell Bodenheim, then 35, had already achieved fame as a poet-novelist, along with a certain notoricty as a Casanova. Because of his recklessness, two women committed suicide and a third attempted it, A fourth, found. dead in a subway disaster, carried a purse containing a batch of lyric love poems and letters sent her by Bodenheim, These were some of the women in Boden. heim's life. But there was another woman, far removed from the Bohemian world in which Bodenheim moved, a Mrs, Wein- berg of Brooklyn, New York. In that year, 1928, she gave birth to a son called Harold, She never met Bodenheim perhaps never even heard his name, Yet her son’s role in the poet-novelist’s life was to assume major proportions Only the grimmest of destinies could have conceived the irony of any bond between the son of the undistinguished Weinbergs and the world-famed, disaster-ridden Maxwell Bodenheim, Riding on the crest of fame—that’s where Bodenheim was at this period in his life. Novel after novel flowed from his pen. Blackguard, Replenishing Jessica, Naked on Roller Skates, Georgie May, Crazy Man, Sixty Seconds to mention just a few of his best known. Georgie May, his best-seller heroine, was the round- heeled daughter of a multimillionaire. Bodenheim wrote into this book his contempt and hatred for millionaires who have all, when hunger lives just around the corner. His out- spokenness here hit the reading public squarely between the eyes, Replenishing Jessica (which brought him into court on a charge of obscenity) delt with an equally obliging, muddled young woman. Another best seller. Bodenheim was using his pen now as a kind of sword against the world, spewing forth his revolt in the blackest

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knew, and tossing his fictional characters into nd lower depths. “No one will listen,’ he raged e doesn't need to be hunger. It’s a stone-age hang With his romantic shack on Cape Cod, his bright red and his undeniable way with women, Bodenheim » the most colorful rebel in New York’s arty Greenwich age, The Village élite (and very especially its female con- tingent) hailed him, Women literally besieged him, though he was married to Minna Schein, with whom he had a son, Solbert. These women brought him their writings for criticism, then stayed around for whatever else he might offer, For a while, the novelist resisted, and despite the onslaughts of these lovely young things, he dedicated his volume of lyric love poems to his wife: Minna and Myself. hen beautiful 22-year-old Virginia Drew moved her clothes and her ambitions down to the Village, and pro- ceeded to fall desperately in love with Bodenheim, as so many of her contemporaries were doing in those days. She brought him a few of her young writings and said: “TI want the truth about them.” She got it. “Sentimental rubbish,” the poet called it—and turned his back on her. Virginia's body was found floating in the Hudson River the next day. Next, 18-year-old Gladys Loeb, neurotic daughter of a prosperous Bronx physician, moved out of the comfortable family home into the Village, and attached herself to Bodenheim, not without encouragement. Though he en- tertained her in his Cape Cod lean-to for days on end (meeting her father’s angry accusation: ‘You're nothing but an irresponsible bum,” with the answer: “I’m a genius. You're an obtuse fellow who can’t recognize genius”), he refused to marry her. Gladys Loeb was found almost dead in her gas-choked room, clutching Bodenheim’s photo- graph—and glad to be rescued. Aimee Cortez next: self-styled Mayoress of Greenwich Village. Aimee did a little of everything. She painted. She wrote prose and poetry, and most of all she loved the exotic Maxwell Bodenheim. She talked of his “leonine head.” In those days Bodenheim seems to have been far from camera- shy, since here, again, a photograph featuring his “leonine head” was found in Aimee’s lifeless hands, the room thick with gas fumes. [Continued on page 50] Their last pitiful tryst; Ruth shares morgue wagon with poet. Below, comrade Maurice weeps: “Max was our King!

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BY RAY BRENNAN, America's Ace Crime Reporter Mi with bright sunshine, the morning of Wednesday, February 10, 1954, was beautiful in Chicago. But Jesse Montgomery didn’t like what he saw. nw : He was looking at the figure of a girl huddled partly under a red bolero jacket. She lay in an alley areaway at the rear of the Kramer Building, which houses a Walgreen drugstore, a cocktail lounge, shops and offices at 75th Street and Exchange Avenue, on Chicago’s South Side. Montgomery, a maintenance man, spotted the young woman when he came out to empty trash at 8:45 a.m. The coat had a shark-tooth pattern, and the man thought he recognized it. It covered the girl’s head and shoulders, so he circled her figure, wondering what she was doing there. What he spied sent him dashing into the building from which he had come. The girl was barefoot. She was nude from the waist down. And Montgomery had seen splotches of rusty brown that could only be drying blood on her bare upper legs. ; The excited man ran into the Kramer Building’s branch of the Prudential Life Insurance Company. He was shak- ing with excitement and horror, but he managed to tell the office manager, Leo G. Rapp: “There's a girl in the alley! Bloody! I think she’s dead! Get the cops!” : 5; Rapp glanced out to the areaway, grabbed up the telephone and called the Grand Crossing police station. In the first police car to arrive were Detectives John Sullivan and James Bergman, A dozen people were in the alley, and the number was growing. Among them was a neighborhood physician. He told the detectives profes- sionally: “I examined her superficially to see whether I could help. She is dead. There are signs of violence. Corrine Baldwin with her co-worker, Clarence Hjerpe. The youth had often warned the girl to stop her flirting. At 16, pretty Caroline Bolte married strangler. “He had a terrible temper. I pity him, but no longer love him.” “I live alone and like it,’ Corrin€ had often quipped. “I get a lot more Propositions than I do proposals.

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“My hands were around her throat. ...1 just had an urge to kill her,” said callow youth, whose record showed he’d been arrested for indecent ex- posure and for possessing marijuana. Here's a terrible example of what is happening ? to the youth of today. A 16-ycar-old girl strays from family ties— and is raped and strangled! A 22-year-old youth 2 spurns his parents’ devotion— ‘and yields to. an urge to kill! Are these our children?

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Body of Corrine Baldwin is carried off to the morgue, where scientific detective work of the coroner begins. Dr. Jerry Kearns, veteran surgeon of 2,000 Chicago murder victims, furnished enough clues to solve crime. Sullivan knelt briefly beside the body, lifting the red coat. He saw the corpse of a young girl who, in life, had been a beauty. = ‘ 2 She had jet black hair, full lips as red as ripe cherries, flawless complexion, and pressing, rounded breasts beneath her white blouse. ; Sullivan straightened up and whispered to his partner: “This is a real dirty murder, I’d say, with rape. Put in the usual call for help.” ; Sullivan had seen something besides the girl’s beauty. He had spotted the ugly, livid marks of a strangler’s fingers on her throat. And there was blood on her bare abdomen and thighs. t ; After Bergman radioed for help, he and Sullivan moved the spectators back out of the alley. It wouldn’t do to have any evidence trampled. Several of the people were clamoring to be heard by the detectives, and a woman’s voice was loudest: ‘I know her ! She’s little Corrine Baldwin. She works at the soda fountain in Walgreen’s. I recognize the coat.” Detective Sullivan thought he recalled the name. He had heard it only a short time before. When two more squads arrived to control the growing crowd, he got on the telephone to his station. “Remember the missing report we had on a young girl this morning ?” he asked. “Wasn't the girl’s name Corrine Baldwin? Her mother telephoned. .. . “That’s right... . Well, call the mother and send her over here right away. I'm afraid we've found her little girl.” The policesexperts began arriving quickly. Shrewd, vet- eran Lieutenant John Golden, homicide chief, pulled up with his ace assistant and interrogator, Detective Leon Sweitzer. So did Dr, Jerry Kearns, coroner’s physician who has performed the post-mortem surgery on 2,000 Chicago mur- der victims. The state’s attorney's office sent Frank Whalen, brilliant and rugged prosecutor. The metropolitan murder mill was beginning to grind. In his city hall office, white-haired Commissioner Tim- othy J. O’Connor heard of the horror crime and headed for the scene. Through the crowd pushed a tall, dark, attractive woman, Mrs, Lydia,Wawrzyniak, of 2627 E. 75th Street. She spoke to Detective Sullivan. He led her into the areaway and lifted an end of a blanket which now covered the corpse. The woman gave a piercing waillot grief, and screamed: “It’s my baby! My baby, Cor- rine! The dead girl was her daughter by a previous marriage. The grieving mother was taken to the Grand Crossing sta- tion to give a statement. And things moved quickly after that. A police photographer shot pictures of the body before it could be removed, Detectives made an inch-by-inch search of the alley and areaway—and there was evidence a-plenty. Two green suéde shoes, presumably the dead girl’s, were found. One was about 40 feet from the body, toward the street, and the other about 20 feet beyond. Into each shoe was tucked a white bobby sock. Sergeant William Ward came upon a pair of spectacles, with one lens shattered, and held up his find. A girl from the crowd called: “They're Corrine’s glasses.” Also found was her coin purse, empty. Detective Adolph Valanis dusted those articles on the spot and peered at them through a powerful glass for finger- prints. They had been wiped clean, The shoes, spectacles and purse were scattered along 4 line from the body toward the street. There were a few auto tire marks in the loose gravel and dirt, but none distinet enough for moulages to be made. It looked, then, as if Corrine had been seized on the street, dragged into the alley, raped and strangled. The shoes, purse and glasses could have [Continued on page 61}

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In areaway, above, right, lay remains of the once vicacious teen-age beauty who demanded—and won—independence of her distraught mother, Mrs. Wawrzyniak, right. Det. A. Valanis dusts girl’s purse for fingerprints ae | i a, eM pose te at eee ad One of the high moments in slayer’s life was when he wedded child bride, Caroline. Her mother is shown, left.

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a A LLL LL Left, strapping Doc Broadhurst loved the great outdoo but his young and lovely wife, Gladys, above, found more — eS excitement in the ways of the slim young ranch hand; below.

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A his life Willis 0. (Doc) Broadhurst had been known as a man's men, with little time for women. As you may surmise, this was a trait thet hed simplified life for the bachelor, who had become a highly successful chiropractor in Caldwell, Idaho. Doc Broadhurst had devoted himself to his practice; he had amassed, through the years, a comfortable $250,000 nest egg; he had acquired two ranches, and he rode the range and fished and hunted. But, being the man he was, the only wild game he ever stalked were the four-legged verieties that are legitimate targets for a sportsman; he never pursued the human quarry that can give a man a worse case of buck fever than any stag looming in the gun sights. And so you might have said that Doc Broadhurst was one, of this world’s-really rare individuals—a truly successful and happy person. At the time that events started to take a lively turn for him, he was @ strapping, robust man of 51, with a booming voice and hair that was only beginning to be tinged with a distinguished gray. Although far from elderly, he was so well-fixed financially that he had retired as a chiropractor to devote himself to his ranches and the great outdoors. Life, you would have said, could have little else to offer. Then Doe Broadhurst fell in love. The gal was Gladys Elaine Lincoln, a widow, a doll, a dish. She » Jet it be known that Nee late husband, an army lieutenant, belonged / to thet gallant legion that had fought overseas and died for their country, A man had only to look at the widow to appreciate the full extent of the lieutertant's tragedy and to understand just what it was that made Doc Broadhurst forget ‘the quiet contentment of bachelorhood. charming witch, Her lips were generously wide and red, and when they parted in one H her frequent, warmly spontaneous smiles, they disclosed perfect and pearly teeth that made the overall effect’ positively dazling—an atomic quotient guaranteed to bowl a 5l-year-old » bachelor right out of the saddle. 1 flashing smile; gazed deep into the dark and sparkling eyes, wide set under thinly vonelled Rayoeows that gave Gladys an exotic, almost Oriental look; and felt a: pulsation that does not come just from riding the open range. | In any event, when Doc came home from a trip to California in the spring of 1946, he came not alone. Instead,-he brought with him the prettiest filly he'd ever coralled to relieve the monotony of life on his Idaho ranch and on that second ranch across the desolate Owyhee breaks in the rich Jordan Valley of ‘Oregon, It was a development that stunned the countryside and astounded neighbors who had never divined ‘romance in Doc, Sentiment, however, quickly rallied to the support of the erstwhile bachelor For Gladys Elaine Lincoln was a red-haired, curvaceous per She was properly molded in the proper places. — All the evidence is that Doc Broadhurst took otie look at that and his bride. The male contingent was quickly captivated, for ~ suddenly at @ gopher hole, Gladys was too much woman for any one man. "We have already committed adultery—murder could be no worse," reasoned this Jezebel. And her lover agreed ” obvious reasons, A few glances at the beauteous bride, who was talented, too—able even to play the piano and the accordion for a man—convinced the ranch haods that Doc. Broadhurst was one of those lucky stiffs who had won himself a woman wo full-time attention. The women, who might have been expected to look with jaundiced eye upon a bride possessed of such obviously rthy of any man's ~ outstanding qualifications, practically swooned with sentiment when - it was learned that Doc's winning of the fair lady was the reward of a lifetime's devotion. } The tumor circulated that Doc and Gladys had known each other 20 years before, when Gladys was a young girl. Doc had lost his heart to her way back then, and he had never had an eye for any other woman. Tragically, it seemed, Gladys had favored another suitor, and this was the reason, all those long and lonely years, that Doc had exhibited such an absorbing interest in cattle and the range. Then Gladys’ husband had been killed in the war; she and Doc had met again; and this time they had found each other. "How romantic!" the women sighed. "Just imagine him. waiting for her all those years!" Hollywood would have rung down the curtain on» this e¢static note; but life is often a freakish villain. . . . » ‘On the morning of October 14, 1946, Doc Broadhurst» prepared fora 50-mile trip from his Idaho home through the lonely Owyhee breaks region fo his Jordan Valley ranch in Oregon. There.had 4 been a*report that rustlers were disturbing some’of hisscé#le, and” so he slipped a long-barreled Winchester.inte the-boot as fhe saddled his black-and-white pinto, Rex.’ ‘He led Rex into a trailer attached to a pickup truck,.ehd turned to: kiss Gladys good-by. The ever-loving bride put her arms around Doc, hugged ‘him and said: “Be careful. Please don'f ‘get into any trouble, dear.” "Don't ROY Doc reassured her. “We'll. get ithe cattle moving, and I'll probably be back by nightfall," But night came, and Doc Broadhurst had not returned, It was a freezing fall night, and a cutting wind whipped across the bleak S feeee of sage. It was a dark’ and bitter night for 4 man to be missing in the wild Owyhee breaks country, And so when Lionel C. Krall, the Caldwell fire chief,) sighted a saddled and bridled horse trotting riderless along a lonely highway, he felt the first thrill of alarm. * ‘ ; Krall was driving home along the Idaho-Oregon-Nevada highway, the principal traffic artery through the wasteland, when the horse- loomed up in his headlights. The set where Krall encountered the horse was near Succor Creek on the Idaho-Oregon boundary, The fire chief quickly recognized the animal as Doe Broadhurst'é pinto, ca and he searched up and down the highway for the missing rider,’ Krall recalled that, some months previously, Rex had shied Asa result; Doc Broadhurst had been = as BY ALTON CRUMBAUGH — ee ee — °° °&7©«

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40 Victim’s nephew, Dr. F. L. Adams, and his wife gave authorities valuable aid in solving brutal shotgun murder. thrown and had suffered a broken ankle. Afraid that the doctor might have met with a similar mishap, he drove to the neighboring ranch of Mendell Fallen, holding Rex’s reins through the open window of his slowly moving car, “Seen anything of Doc Broadhurst today?” Krall asked Fallen. “Nope,” Fallen replied, holding up his lantern to inspect Rex, “but from the looks of things, he must’ve been riding. He never lets anybody else up on Rex.” The two men telephoned the Jordan Valley ranch, 14 miles away, and learned that Doc Broadhurst hadn’t been there that day. Then they saddled horses and began a search through the wild sage country in the bleak and black and bitter night. For three hours they hunted, but by 11 p.m. they had still found no sign of the missing rancher, Krall, increas- ingly worried, decided to telephone Mrs. Broadhurst, The bride herself answered the phone. Why, no, she said, her husband wasn’t there. “He left here to go to the Jordan Valley ranch this morn- ing,” she said. “I supposed he’d decided to stay there. What is the matter ? Is something wrong ?” _Krall told her that he had found Rex wandering on the highway and that a searching party was now combing the countryside, “Don’t worry, Mrs. Broadhurst,” he said. “We'll probably find him all right. We'll sure try, anyhow.” Krall thought that he detected the sound of a sob as the Noc’s red-haired bride hung up. The searchers, having failed in their first broad sweep of the countryside, now went back to the point where Krall had encountered Rex and began to back track on the trail of the horse’s hoofs, It was a slow and arduous task on such a black, moonless night, but finally, in a ravine two miles trom the Idaho-Oregon-Nevada highway, they came upon Doe Broadhurst’s abandoned truck and trailer. The trailer gate was down, showing that someone had let Rex out; a set of footprints in the sand indicated where Six times’ wed Gladys Broadhurst has a light momem in court with her lawyer, before jury returns verdict. a man had mounted the horse. The hoofprints led to thc head of the ravine, where a wide, well-trampled area shoved that the horse must have stood for some time, tethered 10 a branch of sage Casting about for clues, Krall and Fallen again dis- covered the footprints of the man, who had dismounted from Rex’s back and walked away, after tying up the horse. The footprints led the two searchers to a nearby side road, where tire marks revealed that the man had apparently entered a parked car and driven away. Thoroughly alarmed by these discoveries that hinted in sinister fashion of the presence of some mysterious stranger upon the scene, Krall decided to telephone the Idaho ranch again in the vague, flickering hope that Doc might have _ sent word home if he had been just injured and rescued by someone else. Tt was 5 a.m. when Mrs. Broadhurst again answered the first jangle of the telephone. Her voice was low, worried, shaken, obviously the voice of a woman who had suffered through a long night of dread, No, she said, she had had no word from Doc. “T’m so worried,” she confided, “I hayen’t been able te sleep at all.” Told that the truck and trailer had been located, but that Doc still had not been found, she suppressed a sob and murmured into the phone: “Thanks for all you're doing.” The men decided to contact Doc Broadhurst’s nephew, Dr. F, L. Adams. In the early morning, Dr. Adams came upon the group of worried searchers standing near the junction of the Idaho-Oregon-Nevada highway and the Succor Creek road, where the wandering Rex had been found the previous night, The party surveyed a scene whose implications had been hidden in the opaque shadows of night, but whose mean- ing became ghastly clear in the revealing gray glow of dawn. Here, along the highway, were all the evidences of a desperate life-and-death struggle. Sagebrush was smashed and [Continued on page 56] 4

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The body of hapless Doc Broadhurst would if killer hadn’t led the officers, ho wi ebay byte es ca Before she became Mrs. Broadhurst, Gladys movingly described the death of hubby No. 5, above, who really was very much alive.

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42 Across the crowded dance floor the eyes of the brooding strangler and those of the playgirl sparked like a lighted match to a dynamite fuse ... BY.AL CAMPBELL di harsh blare of a juke box greeted the slim, serious faced youth as he pushed open the door to the tavern. Eis brooding eyes lacked the luster of a pleasure seeker instead, his searching glances gave the illusion of a man on the prowl. Strolling leisurely toward the bar, the young man became a lonely figure in a crowd of dancing, drinking couples. Like a specter of doom, he had arrived at midnight It was January 22, 1954, and San Francisco's Friday night festivities in the bistros along Post Street were at their peak. But somehow the stranger seemed oblivious ot it all. Over the rim of his Scotch-and-soda glass, his eyes met those of a smiling young woman whose bright red cascaded attractively across her shoulders as her elderly partner swung her rhythmically on the small square dance floor, The youth nodded and the redhead winked When the music stopped, the girl walked toward the bat The young man made room for her, and soon the two were pressed close by the rush of thirsty dancers, who saw noth ing of the grim tragedy that was finding its beginning here A half hour later, the lone wolf and the redhead left the tavern, A tight smile was on his lips; the woman, thrilled by the strength of his grip on her arm, was like a spellbound creature in the web of a hypnotist, The broad-shouldered youth hadn't asked hadn't suggested but the two knew that only the seclusior of a hotel room could satisfy the feeling within them In a matter of minutes—it was then 2:20 Saturday morn ing—the couple reached the Park Hotel at 325 Sutter Street Located in the quiet section of San Francisco, the small hostelry usually catered to traveling businessmen odd hours of arrival and departure caused no concern to the desk clerk, Gil Anselmo. As he turned to get the key from the rack, the male newcomer registe red, Meanwhile bis red headed companion stood off, [Continued on page 65] haw and the re dhead whose “ y : * While I was making love to her she reached over and grabbed my wallet... . I choked her,” the youth, right, told police about woman, left. the N

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Handsome John Mattson conducted his secret love life as methodically as he did his business dffairs. Love letters and women were plentiful, but the clues to his murder proved elusive BY E. J. WILLIAMS, The Detroit TIMES Rain drilled through a shifting fog over Detroit. On East Grand Boulevard near McDougall—a neighbor- hood changed from handsome old homes to small factories and warehouses—a steady stream of automobiles moved through the spray of their own tires. Their beeping horns made the reedy sound of frogs in a swamp, and their head- lights burned ghostly pale. At 6:30 o'clock on the evening of January 25, 1954, pretty JoAnn Pelak, a 15-year-old high-school girl who lived in that area, was on her way to a confectionery where she had a part-time job, JoAnn was choosing her way very care- fully around black pools of water and slush. She was sorry she had worn her new red coat in all this rain Because she was watching so carefully where she had to step, JoAnn didn’t glance on this particular night into the one lighted ground-floor office of the Atlas Steel Corpora- tion, Almost always, on other nights, she had looked through the wide, low windows and had seen the same man at work before a large walnut desk. Sometimes he would be busily writing with a gold fountain pen. Or he would be talking on the telephone, Often, as she had hurried by, JoAnn would notice the lights in all the other buildings go out, one by one, It had puzzled the girl that this dignified-looking man was always working after everybody else had gone home, JoAnn had just about passed the west end of the building

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Left, police and attendants remove body of philandering John Mattson, above, shuwu with Marilyn Monfrey and her mother. Mattson romanced Miss Monfrey at the same tiie he was writing passionate love letters to Estelle Jamieson, at right. Below, scarcely looking like the “Jolly Milkman” is slayer; his ex-wife, beside him, bemoans hie ©44 fate

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“She was just another woman to him,” killer, center, who had Marilyn Monfrey dated victim for been driven by jealousy, told Inspt. E. Reilly, right, Det. G. Coller. 5 years, unaware he was married. She paid no particular attention to a man_huddled in a long overcoat who went by in the opposite direction. But just a moment later she felt a hand touch her shoulder lightly. The frightened girl stifled a cry. This same stranger was standing there, touching his hat apologetically. His eyes betrayed excitement. He spoke with a marked European accent. “I saw a man back there in that office,” he said, pointing. “I think he must be dead.” With that, the man began walking swiftly toward the lighted office, then turned around and motioned for JoAnn to come, too. Not knowing really what to do, the young girl followed him, Together they looked into the office. John W. Mattson, 53-year-old traffic manager and ace salesman for the corporation, was slumped down in his green leather chair ; his arms, spilling over the sides almost to the floor, were motionless. His head was a mass of blood, and had drooped forward on his chest. JoAnn backed away from the sight. The stranger said. “We should call the police. I have a friend who lives not far away. The terrified schoolgirl ran, forgetting all about the muddy water that splashed on the skirt of her new coat. Robert Liddell, who had been working late for a nearby engineering firm, was just about to get into his automobile. Ile saw the girl running and sensed something wrong. “What's the matter, sister?” Liddell asked, somewhat blocking JoAnn’s path. “Can I do something 2” JoAnn, trying hard to catch her breath, said she had seen It was through unfortunate coincidence that young JoAnn Pelak had to witness the slayer’s handiwork.

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dead man Atlas office Liddell took JoAnn’s arm and steered her across the boulevard to where there was a gas station with a te lephone He was soon talking to a desk leutenant at the Chene pre cinct. When Liddell hung up and turned around to ask the girl another question, she was gone! \ coroner's assistant, the police photographer and a num- ber of precinct men were at the scene when Homicide In- spector Edward Reilly arrived with two of his very best men, Detective Lieutenants Edward Jocque and 7 homas Cochill, They gave Mattson's body a cursory examination and then proceeded to look carefully around the office. The assassin’s movements were not hard to trace, even though he had left no trail. He had crept down an alley at the rear, then into some bushes on the west side of the build- ing. Here he was stopped by a four-foot wire fence, but in that spot he was only about three feet from the side window of Mattson’s office. The steel executive, seated at the big desk, was an easy target. The single bullet went through the window and shattered when it hit its unsuspecting victim. Mattson, struck above the temple, died instantly. The broken fragment of the bullet drilled through the street window and was located near the curb by one of the detectives. So far this was the most im- portant evidence found, Rain had obliterated all but two very faint footprints near the west window, and there was no chance of getting casts from them. No attempt had been made to force entrance into the office Phil Silver, president of Atlas, arrived. Mattson’s boss was a badly shaken man. “There just isn’t one reason in the world that John should have died like this,” said Silver, who was almost in tears. “He was a wondertul man, and I just hate to think of the She poited back to the patch of light at the shock this will be to his wife. Do you think this was so crazy attempt at robbery, Inspector ¢ , Robbery was not in the picture, Reilly said, and he added, The man who did this was a cold-blooded killer with a very strong motive, ik RheWe: to the inspector's question as to why Mattsor had been working so late, Silver explained that the traffe manager made this a regular habit. He stayed at the office, usually, for two or three hours after the office force had gone home, Mattson was a $13,000-a-year man and he put in plenty of hours on the job. , The inspector waited patiently for the coroner to finish his examination, then directed the removal of the body When this had been done, he handed Cochill and Jocque a slip of paper with a scribbled address “Go out there and break this news to Mrs. Mattson,” he said. “Take it easy, but find out everything you can about him.” Inspector Reilly slipped the bullet fragment into his pocket, to be studied by the police scientific laboratory Mattson’s desk, the inspector noticed, was clear of every- thing but his expensive desk set, the phone, a small silk American flag and a few other appurtenances. The inspector tried the top right-hand drawer. In the forward compartment, on top of a little pile of letters, was a folded sheet of plain letter paper. Reilly took this sheet out and saw at once that it was an unfinished letter, in handwriting as neat as copperplate This 1s what he read: “I have never condemned you in any way, but have felt rather that you are an honorable gentleman, and that your motives are above reproach. What difference is it that I met J. ina drug store? Would it be different if I met her at Lady Astor's ball ? “To me J. is the most beautiful [Continued on page 66) Rifle bullet struck the man of many loves as he sat at desk. “I’m not afraid of the Jack of Diamonds,” he had written 4

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‘ = & \a % ‘ Little Joe’s Last Big Game [Continued from page 29] law-enforcement officer of Jefferson County, ordered the car pulled into the Wrens Garage, and the bodies removed to the morgue. As soon as Bessie Leak- way was able-to talk he asked her how it happened. She couldn't help much. “Joe just lost control of the wheel, 1 uess. But where is my dog and my pocketbook? I had $14 in that wallet and 1 want it.” Stanley told her he would see if the purse had been recovered from the wreck. Then he left to return to his office. His deputy awaited him. “File a report with the State Patrol, Jim. Accident caused by too much speed. Notify the Army at Savannah about the soldier and put in a call for the police chief at Savannah. I want to check that Olds.” Monday morning Stanley received the information he wanted. The car was listed in Little Joe’s name. It was not stolen. He had a record for disorderly conduct, gambling and several other charges. The coast city officers knew him well. The sheriff was interrupted by a deputy. “One of the doctors at the hospital called, sheriff, about Mrs. Leakway. She’s terribly upset over the death of her dog and the missing fourteen bucks!” “Probably delirious. I’ll go over and talk with her,” Stanley promised. At noon, after talking with Bessie Leakway and learning nothing except the - woman’s reiterated story that she hadn’t wanted to make the trip but that she had been forced by her husband, to go along, the sheriff checked again with his deputy. “We've been receiving quite a few calls from Savannah,” he was told. “Seems everyone down there is interested in that wreck.” “Friends of the victims?” The sheriff asked. The deputy shook his head. “That's what I can't figure. They seem more interested in the car than in the people who were killed in it!” “The way of human flesh,” Stanley mused. “Fighting over the property of relatives before the bodies are cold in the grave. There won't’ be much out of that Olds, though; it’s beat. Fifty dollars for junk is about what it’s worth now!” Tuesday, two days after the fatal wreck, the men at the garage telephoned Stanley. “Sheriff, it seems everybody and his brother is after this wrecked car. A lawyer and a private cop were here this morning, and right now there are a couple of women looking it over. What do you make of it? Stanley thought a second. “Try to de- tain those women. I’ll be right over.” But by the time Stanley arrived at the garage, Be women had become alarmed and had eft. “One of them claimed there was @ spare tire in the trunk compartment. When we couldn’t find it, she raised hell. Words she said shouldn't come from a lady’s mouth!” the attendant stated. “Give me a description of her and of those others. There is something about this case I don’t understand and I want to talk to some of those people. Mean- time, I want a man to go over what’s left of that car with a fine-tooth comb. If he finds anything out of the way, I want to know about it.” ; The garage owner called one of his me- chanics, w J. McNair, and relayed the sheriff's instructions. “TIL be back shortly,” Stanley told the mechanic. As he started to leave to begin tracing the inquisitive people, Miss Mabel Haulbrook, a bookkeeper for the garage, came out and hailed him. “There was a young black-haired boy with the two women,” the young woman began, “and he climbed all over the wrecked car. He certainly was looking for something, but 1 don’t think that they have found it yet.” Perplexed by the mystery, the sheriff thanked the bookkeeper and drove off to his office. His efforts to find the people at Savannah bore little fruit. It seemed that the case was just bogging down with curious people who expected to find some- thing there that wasn’t! Something that did not exist. Then the mechanic called from the garage. “You'd better come, Sheriff, and quick!” Stanley lost little time in arriving. He found the mechanic in an almost complete state of shock. “I’ve found it, Sheriff. I’ve found what those people were looking for! Crammed in the air-conditioning vent under the trunk behind the back seat. Here it is, every bit of it!” And he spread it out before the sheriff: 20s, 50s and $100 bills—not new and crisp, but used, worn money. “Great guns! How much is there?” Stanley asked; then realized that the boy was too excited to have counted any of it. Stanley, with help from the Wrens Garage office force, went to work. The exact total came to $46,160. ~ Stanley picked up the phone. “I don’t know whose money it is, but there is only one thing to do with it.” He dialed Judge Robert H. Humphrey. The judge ordered the money deposited in a Louisville, Georgia, bank. Then Stanley notified the Savannah office of the Federal Revenue Department, and agents were dispatched to the scene. The FBI sent agents from Augusta and Savannah. .A bank official, who declined to be identified, told reporters that the FBI was checking to learn if the money was part of the loot of a bank held up in Houston, Texas, earlier in the month. Meantime, officers working on the Savannah end of the case reported that the sum of money found in the car and the amount that Lil Green, Little Joe’s wife, had withheld from the government were about the sdme. Sheriff Stanley’s next move was to return to the Jefferson County Hospital to talk with Mrs. Leakway. She lay, propped up in bed with a brace around her neck. She greeted the sheriff with a question: had her little dog been buried nicely? Then, answering those put to her by Stanley, she replied: “I don’t know anything about any money being in that car. As I told you, Sheriff, I didn’t want to make the trip. I was forced to go. If Joe Green had any money, it belonged to Lil. It wasn’t his.” And that’s all she’d say with regard to the mystery. On Thursday, Stanley learned that the private detective, the lawyer and the women and child who had prowled around the wrecked car had been located by the federal agents. They had been questioned and released without clearing up any part of the enigma. Meanwhile, in Savannah, Lieutenant Jay received an anonymous call from a tipster. “I’ve information on the wreck at Wrens if you’d care to listen,” the low voice of a woman said. “Name a spot, lady,” the detective stalled, attempting to trace the call, But the woman was too quick. She named a bar near the river, then hung up. The lieutenant kept the appointment. He didn’t have long to wait before he wa approached by a girl hardly out of hey (eens. She was a blonde whose wordly. wise mannerisms showed that she was older in experience than she should be for her age. “You're the cop I called?” she asked Lieutenant Jay nodded, and she slipped into the booth, across from him. “I knew Joe Green,” she began, “I knew him well. Maybe better-than Lil, his wife, and } want to put you cops straight on the deal. That was Little Joe’s money in that car. It was his, not Lil’s.” “How can you be sure? Can you prove it?” “Yeah. But it'd involve a lot of people and someone else might get bumped Even me, I could get bumped just for talking with you. You're a cop!” She spat the words out distastefully. “Okay! So you don’t like Cops. I don't care for gamblers and shakedown artists like Joe Green. And I also know that two months ago Joe was so hard up he had to hock his gun to eat.” The small blonde nodded in agreement “That was before he got hot with the cubes!” ‘Jay laughed. “Don’t try to tell me that he got hot enough to win 46,000 bucks in that short time. That’s a laugh!” “Laugh, then, but he won it. Every dime. I know for sure.” , “Make me know it.” “T helped him set up the games. Me and some other girls, but I’m not calling any names.” “Soldiers from the air base?” “Sure. A sucker is a sucker, in uniform or out!” The lieutenant wasn’t interested ix her story about Little Joe winning the money, because he didn’t, or couldn't believe anyone could be so lucky in such a short period of time. But he wes in- terested in her talk about “set-up” poker and dice games. The soldiers from the nearby bases were complaining too regu- larly of being fleeced in games to which they had been lured by good-looking gals like the one across the table from nm now. “And Joe was playing this deal!” “Up to his ears. Oh! He wasn't by hiz- self. He had some soldier buddies from the bases helping—but he made that money on his own. It wasn’t Lil's.” “Kind of sweet on Joe and down on Lit aren't you?” “My sister worked in one of her houses Need I say more? Joe was a right guy Sure, he was a gambler; but he had a ba¢ start. He worked the carnivals, did har! work for peanuts for years before * learned the cards.” “And you still want me to believe t#! he won that money with dice and cards “I never try to make a cop believe 20 thing, because they'll believe what th information was what Lieutenaut /* wanted, for it was something conc something that could be run dow® * found to be true or false. After making her statement, the ble had Jay promise to keep her ident! secret. Otherwise, she feared, sit ®. killed by the mob. The girl also added! she had met Joe while working ¥") girlie show in a carnival, She 10

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yres of the act's stars, [t was shows as this one that provided Little Joe ) his supply of girls to entice men into ked card games. Lieutenant Jay was extremely inter- sted, now, because of recent reports that sring consisting of pretty girls and small- me shady gamblers was operating to uke the soldiers for their pay. From the reports and information that the police bad, it was established that the ring was working mostly in the counties surround- ing Savannah. This made their manipula- nons dificult for the local police to stop. The girls, authorities believed, were act- ng as steerers and were being paid a per- centage of the take to bring the soldiers n. The games were operated on a “‘float- ing game’ basis, which meant that the location was changed from night to night, and only the girls and the gamblers knew + where they’d be each evening. This system was very effective in keeping the police away. Jay knew further that this vice circuit was tied in with allied rackets, such as prostitution and muggings. Strong-arm robbery was also involved, in the cases in which—by a miracle—suckers sur- mounted the odds and won. The setup had become such a thorn in the side of the Army that the post commander was in a ighting mood concerning the victim- izing of his troops. He had called on the governor for help, and a state investigator had checked the conditions and found them so bad that the governor asked for the resignation of the sheriff of one county. The police of Savannah were making every effort to put a stop to the racket. The blonde informant’s statement was checked, and found to be true. Meanwhile, back in Louisville, Georgia, the FBI had checked the bills against the Texas bank heist. This lead faded when none of the money checked with that taken from the bank. But the income-tax agents were casting wistful eyes on the sum of money, for regardless of whom the cache belonged to, the government Was wanting in on its share. “I doubt the Savannah story that Joe Green won the money at dice or poker, one agent declared. “I'd rather figure that he was playing around with Lil Green’s money. She entrusted it to him and he was blowing it in.” Sheriff Stanley didn’t agree. He made a statement in which he said that he be- lieved an investigation would turn up a widespread bunch of shakedown rackets and bring about the arrest of many known racketeers. Agents of the FBI and of the Bureau of Internal Revenue continued to ques- tion the mechanic who had found the money. He became weary of their ques- Hons and finally asked to be left alone. ‘l just wish that I hadn't been the one 'o find the stuff,” he stated. From her prison room in the federal ‘ormatory, Lil Sims Green was non- committal over the finding of the money. She was, however, shaken up by the news of her husband’s death. On Monday, February 1, 1954, one Week and one day after the wreck, the ‘ase was at a standstill. It seemed that the money would go unclaimed in the ~ulsville bank. Then swiftly, as often ‘“ppens in similar cases, it came to a com- Plete end : _ The FBI, working with the local police, 0k over the questioning of the blonde ormant. In elaborating on the state “ent she had given to Lieutenant Jay, the Srl told how she and other girls working r Little Joe had picked up soldiers and officers at Dass abd uu thy beach and had *scorted them to various huuses that were set up for short periods of operation. Each girl's job had Bian to finger the mark, learn how much money he was carrying and if he was inclined to gamble—also, whether or not he was the type to squawk if he lost all of his pay, For this work the girls had been paid a percentage of the amount taken from the sucker. The blonde claimed that Little Joe alone had had thirty or forty girls work- ing for him. In addition, he had ten small- time sharps to operate the card and dice games. The games were strictly poker and dice. The house usually contained three or four poker tables and one old pool table with back boards nailed to the sides. All Little Joe needed to set up a night’s run of business were a few dozen decks of cards, booze, come-on girls—and a bunch of willing suckers. : With this information the’ FBI, the Military Police and the Savannah Police Department's vice squad broke the back - of a large ring of “floating crap and poker games” artists—of which Little Joe had been one of the sharpest—in the crowded soldier town of Savannah and the adjoin- ing town of Hinesville. Im this south- eastern Georgia town, and county, it was found that vice had been running rough shod; that a soldier could buy What he wanted if he was “heeled.” This included a dice game in which the sky was the liniit; a woman for an hour or a week. The authorities also established that the money found in the wreck and held in the Louisville bank definitely belonged to Little Joe Green. The tale of how he had won it in less than 60 days with his card and dice games would amaze the most gullible of fiction readers. Truth is, then, stranger than fiction. And the FBI, the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the local police were convineed that he had, indeed, amassed this seemingly incredible pile. Little Joe had proved that a combina- tion of cards, dice, cheap booze, pretty and easy women, mixed with soldiers fresh from the Army pay lines can be made to roll up a fortune for a “not too honest person.” And thus the case ended. But Little Joe is dead. He won't be making a four “the hard way” any more. And the tax boys have sliced themselves the largest part of the take. The rest will go to Lil Sims Green, his widow. She’ll pay tax on this money. Uncle Sam will see to that! SHAKE HANDS WITH A MURDERER A dapper, 35-year-old man walked out of a Sunset Strip nightclub in Hollywood and told two highway patrolmen standing near the door to “shake hands with a murderer.” The man, identifying himself as Francis Albert Rybar, scion of a wealthy Pittsburgh fainily, was taken to the Hollywood police station and booked on sus- picion of murder after it became known that two hours earlier the body of his estranged wife, Mrs. Mary Rybar, had been found in a nearby El Sereno motel. The woman’s body was discovered by her two children by a previous marriage after she failed to keep a bowling date with them, Hollywood police reported that Rybar told them: “She had been cheating on me, going out with other men it any more I kissed her tenderly I just couldn't stand . then I strangled her with my own hands. The slain woman’s children told authorities that Rybar was “insanely jealous a

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Of Poets and Dark Destiny (Continued from page 33] August of 1928 brought death to still another admirer, Dorothy Dear, in an un- precedented subway accident at 42nd Street in New York City. Six others died in that disaster. She had been en route to a rendezvous with Bodenheim. Miss Dear’s handbag contained a batch of im- passioned love letters from the fertile Bodenheim's pen. One of them, prophet- ically inept, read: “I shall probably live a year or two at the most, and then in- vestigate the twinkling scandals in the sky.” Neqapanee columnists attacked Boden- heim, “Self-styled Francois Villon” (that man of many loves), they called him. Bodenheim sent letters of furious protest. “] cannot help it,” he raged. They will not let me alone.” It was true. Bodenheim attracted women as the lodestone attracts the unfixed. They swept him from his moorings, not unwillingly. It was never too difficult to lift Bodenheim from the ground. His eyes were ever, on the stars. These were the days of hip flasks and the mass revolt of idealistic youth. Young people, in startling numbers, felt they had a separate life to lead, and parents were more or less expendable, The Village was a hub. There is no doubt but that Boden- heim was riding high. Meanwhile, across the river, the Wein- bergs, whose offspring was to play such a tragic role in the poet’s destiny, were finding life barely tolerable. In 1931, Harold, now nearing four, fell from a sliding pond in the park, landing squarely on his head. He was stunned. “Just a scratch,” the doctor said. “He'll be all right.” Judging from later events, it is possible that the doctor was mistaken. In the next two years the Weinberg family disintegrated. The father ran out on the crop of trouble he had fostered. Mrs. Weinberg, weary with an apronful of children—one girl, Jennie, totally deaf; the six-year-old Harold unmanageable— placed the boy with the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum. When the asylum closed its doors, Harold was turned over to a foster family. Four years rolled by, and fate decided to bring closer together the lives of the poet and the boy who was to prove his nemesis. For it was at this point that their lots were cast along the same road downward. E In 1935, the unemployment rolls were high. Bodenheim was approaching middle age. At 42, he led a demonstration of hungry writers into Home Relief head- quarters, demanding food and shelter. His hooks weren’t selling. His current writ- ings had begun to take on some of the tinsel trappings of the Village—saturated with alcohol. And Harold Weinberg, in the same orbit, hurtling toward destruction, was sent, on his teacher’s recommendation, to Bellevue Hospital for observation—at the age of six. The boy was constantly at war in his little world. He was accident-prone, and it was at this early stage that he sustained, in one of his endless childish brawls, the one-inch scar over his eyelid which was to act as a pointer in his di- rection when |he became the fugitive object of public interest later. Bellevue diagnosed Harold Weinberg as “extremely possessive” and a “bully.” In the end, the disaster that finally caught up with young Weinberg, and moved him into the glare of blinding publicity was 50 A to more than substantiate Bellevue's find- ings. His “extreme possessiveness,” later to mount to the point of mania, was to send him far afield sexually. When he wanted a woman—no matter what her obligations, or even inclinations—that woman was his. Or woe betide her and whoever else tried to interfere! Meanwhile, Bodenheim never left Greenwich Village. It was his mecca when he was at the top, and it was the only place left to him when he hit rock bottom. There are at least two worlds in New York's Greenwich Village. The sincere, hard-working, often gifted group, which turns to this world-within-a-world be- cause rents are cheaper, friends are quicker, and loneliness is not practiced. Out of this group has emerged a star- studded procession: Eugene O'Neill, Edna St. Vincent Millay, John Masefield and Ben Hecht, to name a few. But there is, also, a lunatic fringe in the Village: a derelict, care-nothing bunch that hangs around and makes a narcotic of its preoccupation with words. Here, of course, the low rents are a lure. The standards are low, too. Baths are luxuries, and their absence no loss. Methods of living, and even of dying, are not quarreled with. Fannie Hurst describes her life in Greenwich Village as a “period of en- chantment.” Sinclair Lewis wrote that the Village is as “romantic as fiction de- clares,” Harry Kemp, the Hobo Poet, Theodore Dreiser, Frank Norris, O. Henry—they all remember the Village with nostalgia. But the Greenwich Village of which they write is as dead as a dodo. Maxwell Bodenheim, caught in a vor- tex between these two worlds, struggled fitfully out of the one into the other, then wearily back again for the remainder of his life. Bodenheim moved, now, straight down the grade—working less, talking more, in cafes, on sidewalks, a leading voice in the little clusters around Washington Square Park. Inevitably, Bodenheim was shift- ing ground—from the working group which had hailed him as a talent who had something to say and was slated to say it, over to the other side, the seamier, dreamier side. The side that didn’t like to work, not if there was relief around. The side that hugged the bars, and lifted another to toast life and its elusive hap- piness. Who’s Who in America dropped Bodenheim’s name from its pages in 1936. But his wry sense of humor never de- serted him, “They heaped all kinds of glories on me in my day,” he would say; “they showered honors. But never a testi- monial dinner. Do you know why? Be- cause I was hungry.” It was in this morass that Bodenheim lost his wife and their son—his last anchor to reality. For Minna could no longer move in the floundering, riotous, Bo- hemian, neither-night-nor-day atmos- phere of Bodenheim’s Greenwich Village. Mrs. Bodenheim had taken work as a secretary to swell the family income. In 1938 the Bodenheims were divorced. In his loneliness, the poet sought out still another batch of fume-ridden lost souls who were flattered to listen to his philosophy, and even willing to buy him a drink here and there for the privilege. The Village Vanguard, which. still stands at 178 Seventh Avenue South, gave him a job reciting his poetry for the de- light of the tourists. But even this passed. Bodenheim’s growing need for liquor had him in a kind of trance, unattractive to the out-of-town oglers. He lost his job. The year of Bodenheim’s fateful di- vorce from his wife saw Harold Wein- berg, the sinister shadow in the poet's life, committed to Rockland State Hos pital in Orangeburg, New York, under the supervision of Director A. M. Stanley His mother never visited him (though she is reported to have “pitied him”), nor did he ever see his father. Goldie Mills, he sister, managed to come once or twice Harold was treated as “emotionally dt turbed"” and held at Rockland for seven years. “On the other hand, Maxwell Boden heim took a temporarily new lease on life. He married Mrs. Grace Fawcett Finan, the widow of an artist. His fleet- ing moment of glory came again when, in 1939, Poetry Mayasine awarded him the Oscar Blumenthal prize. Then, for the next few years, he was in and out of jail and Bellevue as an alcoholic. His books died out of the publishers’ lists. Maxwell Bodenheim was flat broke. i Somewhere along the line this literary scapegrace emerged with a novel, Lights in the Valley. It didn’t bring much. Then he was cast in a leading role in William Saroyan’s dcross the Boards on Tomorrow Morning, a short-lived success. Of one thing and another—perhaps out of a very deep unhappiness, since Bodenheim was easier to worship than to live with—the second Mrs. Bodenheim died in 1942. Rockland State Hospital released Harold Weinberg in the year 1945, when he was 17. He was declared “recovered.” Strikingly handsome, with a full, sensuous mouth and a swagger in his walk, Wein- berg’s personal vanity never slipped. He brushed his hair until it shone. Dating from the point of discharge from the insane asylum, Weinberg’s career reads strangely for a man recovered of mental illness. His eight-month army career ended in release for “incompatibility for pubhc service.” Again, he was treated as a “psychopath with persecution complex” —this time by the Veterans’ Administra- tion. When he regained his freedom once more, he found a quick road to easy money: jostling, grand larceny . .. picking pockets. ... Jail sentence succeeded ja! sentence; he’ exchanged one mental in- stitution for another. The decks have to be cleared for emergency cases. Twenty-five now, he was out on the town with a handsome face and a radiant smile if his mood happened to be good If there was menace to the boy, you'd never know it until, perhaps, too late. After innumerable jousts with the law and the asylums, Weinberg landed 2 240 East 20th Street in Manhattan, io December of 1953. Fate was now working feverishly to bring together the two protagonists. Each had a predestined roi to play, and time was running short The tenants were frightened of Harold Weinberg. Miss Pat Meagher and Mis Sarah Shindler of the same address, bot 28, reported that he paced the floor lat: at night and muttered to himself. It wa eerie. “Phobia,” he would chant: “ager phobia .. . claustrophobia. . .” Then: “Ms wife, Gladys, she wanted rest. She's xc! it now.” (Weinberg has never been mr ried.) He constructed the 1 AM Bt!S? sign which the police found near Maxwe- Bodenheim's dead body. He borrowed 5 dog from a chum. He donned a pair & dark glasses and leashed the dog wit? ’ twisted necktie, then walked the street begging alms. Once, he confided to roo* mates: “I made $15 today. I think ! stick to this job. It's really a career In the interim, Bodenheim hit a °° rung on his trip down: sleeping in ha ways and subways; drinking ru’ ~> alcohol when the going was rough W* in 1952, a benefit was staged by *"

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eadents ot tne University ut Chicago, to a st him, he was found on Chicago and Wabash Avenues paralyzed from drink fe almost died that time a Lower, too, sank Harold Weinberg. In- evitably, he wandered down to Greenwich Village in the maze on which he had nbarked long ago, and which he was slated to follow to its logical conclusion. On leaving a friend's place he said: “J pelong in the Village. I like the atmos- here down there.” He burned a few candles that night to create a bit of atmos- ehere, in advance, “ Meanwhile, an old love of Bodenheim’'s appeared_one evening, at the San Remo Cafe at Bleecker and McDougal Streets. The poct was deep in his cups. Looking up, that tight little, bright little figure seemed familiar. He hailed her and she responded. Soon Ruth Fagan became Mrs. Bodenheim the third. Not too long afterward, in the Minnetta Tavern farther down the block on Me- Dougal Street, a meeting took place that cannot be attributed to chance. Ruth Fagan Bodenheim and Harold Weinberg struck up a friendship—with Maxwell Bodenheim rounding up the bizarre trio. The attraction between Harold and Ruth was spontaneous and violent. The third Mrs. Bodenheim was 33 years old to Bodenheim’s 61—in full flare, if not quite in full possession of her faculties. Ruth might have stepped out of the pages of any one of Bodenheim’s novels. She was confused and angry and very pretty. Despite the difference in their ages, Ruth seems to have loved the failing poet ior his past glory. She tried hard to revive the aging bard’s interest in his work, even typing manuscripts for authors to eke out a few dollars for food to sustain them both. On the other hand, the woman was flattered and excited by the attentions paid to her by the younger, gayer speci- men, this man with the ready smile that reached out to her, and the insolent swagger that pulled her back—Harold Weinberg. Friends have reported seeing these two around the Village together, unaccom- panied by the stumbling ‘Bodenheim. Doubtless, these reports seeped back to the husband. He was on shaky ground here. Harold Weinberg was as devastat- ing to women today as Maxwell Boden- bem had been in the 20s ... and Ruth was 28 years his junior. The girl had a natural tolerance for eccentrics. Despite the fact that she was 2 graduate of the University of Michigan and a former newspaperwoman, she had heen, for a period, an inmate of a Michi- <0 mental institution. If Weinberg had tver hinted at his blowzy past, the chances ue good that Ruth Bodenheim would not tave turned away. And perhaps the girl #as tiring of huddling against the wind ™ dark doorways at night. : Harold Weinberg was obsessed with ‘tuughts of Mrs. Bodenheim. He used ‘to stalk the Village on his free nights (he had become a dishwasher recently), tracking down the Bodenheims. This Wasn't easy, since these derelict two never <new where they would turn up next. Sooner or later, however, you could find Maxwell Bodenheim, at least, at one or ‘nother of the dimly lighted spots, trying ‘0 sell a piece of paper on which he had ‘nibbled a futile line or two of nonsense terse. The going price for a scrap of Sodenheim poetry for the uptown clien- ‘tle that came slumming down there to fod “atmosphere” was a quarter—the Price of a drink oh “he Village had it that when Weinberg *alked Bodenheim up and down its alleys. “© never stopped when he located him He moved along, then, until he located Ruth Bodenheim—unattached. Saturday, February 6, 1954, was a lot like all the other nights. The Bodenheims hadn't eaten much, but had drunk a good bit. They were just walking now, on Third Avenue near the Bowery. _ Since November, 1953, they had been living in the basement apartment of John McGraw, artist and janitor of 53 West 11th Street. He had evicted them that day, and they were wandering again, footloose. It was then that they ran into Weinberg on his way home after a night of drinking. The ill-assorted three hailed each other and talked for a minute or two on the dimly lighted street. It is difficult to imagine the conversation of these three. The medium of exchange between the younger man and Ruth Bodenheim is not hard to guess at. That between the poet and this vagabond—impossible to im- agine. Ruth’s voice, on Weinberg’s ap- proach, had taken on that quickened tempo which Bodenheim loathed. “Getting cold again,” Ruth said. “We'll hit the doorways all over again tonight, I guess,” Then she had an inspiration. “Couldn't we use your room?” she asked Weinberg. jes still has some of that bottle of wine eft.’ Weinberg hesitated. But—a bottle of wine ...a pretty woman... a drunken husband. . . “Okay,” he growled. “‘Come on up.” For a moment Ruth held back. Her recent suspicions that Bodenheim’s wine was being poisoned returned to her. She had even phoned the police a few months earlier, complaining that someone was dropping “goof balls” (barbiturates: quick and inexpensive means to a jag) into Max’s drinks. The poet prorecn at this point. “No, thank you.” He had no love for this man. Only a week ago he had quarreled with Weinberg in a restaurant, when the latter had leered, a little too openly, at Ruth “Leave Ruth alone,” the poet had shouted, brandishing a knife lying on the table, “or I'll kill you.” Everybody at the restaurant had heard him, it seems; but nobody worried overmuch about any Bodenheim threat. The only deaths he could bring about were paper deaths. But it was almost midnight now. All of the usual hangouts were closed. Boden- heim was white with fatigue. It was agreed. They would all spend the night at Weinberg’s place, 97 Third Avenue. The Bodenheims spent the next night ona slab in the morgue. “How do you mean”—Chief Nielson turned to Luck—"this wasn't their room? Whose did you say it was?” “Guy called Weinberg, like I said,” Luck answered. “About three weeks ago he rented it. You’re not allowed to sublet around here. I'll have a thing or two to say to that guy when he turns up.” “What makes you think he'll turn up?” one of the detectives wanted to know. “He left nothing behind.” “Still a few days to go on his rent. He'll turn up.” “Any idea where he hangs out?” the chief asked. “We've got a thing or two to ask him ourselves.” “How should I know? I'm willing to help,” Luck offered, “but these people are shifty customers. They don’t know where they’re going when they go. Wherever they turn up, there they are.” Chief Nielson looked around, thought- fully. There was very little to go on, so far. At this stage of the proceedings he was, of course, unaware of the turbulent background of the dead. He turned to Luck again, then gave up, ordering a more intensive search of the room. There wasn’t a trace of its original occupant— MAN OF MANY FACES Edward A. Kimlinger, a 28-year-old ex-convict who was picked up by Peoria, Illinois, police in conection with four recent robberies, models the disguises Police Captain Kenneth Hill said he admitted employing during the thefts. The photo at left shows Rimlinger without any disguise; center photo shows him with toupee added, and in the photo at right he completes his disguise with addition of false nose and eyeglass frame 4 uM j '

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not a stitch of clothing had been left be- hind—nothing to indicate who had lived there or why he had fled. In itself, this was suspicious. If Weinberg was on the run—why was he? Had he run in fear of the killers, or of his own skin? “Wherever they turn up” seemed to he nowhere. A 13-state alarm was im- mediately issued, and a Wanted notice posted, stretching from Greenwich Vil- lage to Miami. WANTED: Harold Weinberg, alias Joe Greenberg. Age: 25. Complexion: fair. Weight: 150 pounds. Slim build. Hair; brown. Nose: pug, large. Oc- cupation: messenger boy and dish- washer. Distinguishing marks: one-inch scar over left eye; scar under chin; a third under right elbow. CAUTION: This man may be armed. At this point Harold Weinberg was sought as a material witness only. Apart from the padlock barring passage to the room from the outside, the entire thing could have been labeled either a suicide pact, or the murder of one by the other, followed by suicide. But that outside bar ruled out both possibilities. Someone had locked the dead into that room. That someone knew something about the crime. Without delay, two women, Jane Michel and Cima Finger, identified the bodies. They ran a book shop at 164 West 4th Street. The Bodenheims used the book shop as a mail address. Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Mil- ton J. Halpern found that the double mur- der had been committed less than 24 hours before discovery of the bodies and that four knife wounds in her back had brought death to Mrs. Bodenheim. They had pene- trated her left lung. Bodenheim hadebeen shot through the heart with a .22-caliber bullet. Under the supervision of Lieutenant Edward J. Drum, Jr., 50 detectives were alerted immediately and an additional 50 added to the search by the following morning. They scattered in and around Brooklyn, Weinberg’s original stamping grounds, and concentrated on lower Man- hattan. A detail of two special detectives was sent to interview members of the fugi- tive’s family, the Weinbergs, who were still living in Brooklyn around the Brighton Beach area. Goldie Mills, Harold Weinberg’s sis- ter, had this to say: “My brother Harold . .. sometimes he would draw absolute blanks. He never was normal... .” In re- fusing to give her last name or her ad- dress, Goldie explained: “You may think it strange that I'm so timid about it. You wouldn’t think so if you knew how Harold has worried us during the past few years. .., We're afraid. We just don’t know what might happen if he came where we are.... Of course, Harold has had girl friends since he’s been old enough. But he was awfully fickle. His love affairs never lasted very long.” She ended by a declara- tion of faith: “I don’t believe he did it. He couldn’t have. ... I admit he needs a doctor, wherever he is. But I just know he couldn’t kill anybody. ... He wouldn't harm a fly,” No help here. Pawnshops were alerted, With instructions to turn in any .22-caliber rifle that might be pawned. Secondhand dealers known to traffic in firearms were sinularly cautioned. Cleaning establish- ments were on guard for bloodstained arments. Weinberg’s picture was flashed tom here to eternity—and the police $2 A lightened the net, combing the alleys and the dingy haunts of Greenwich Village in the hope that Weinberg, alias Greenberg, had never left the downtown area at all Detectives lurked on every Village pavement now, stopping whatever flotsam and jetsam drifted by. They concentrated on bars and taverns where the poet, whose death had become a symbol of the end of a long Bohemian era, had drowned him- self in alcohol. Tips flooded in from points up and down the eastern seaboard—from Las Vegas to around the corner in New York. Every lead was checked, and every lead was a blind alley. “Let 'em talk,” Nielson instructed the detectives. “Let ’em talk till they tell.” They talked all right, but they didn’t tell. Running down the list of Weinberg’s intimates and friends ,proved a_ sleazy trail, leading exactly nowhere. He had almost none. His few stray acquaintances were warned to report to headquarters, should they learn anything. In particular, the police alerted Weinberg’s friend, Alan Siegel, when it was learned that from time to time in the past the wanted man had stayed with him for a few days. At 6a.m., February 10, 1954, a Chinese telephoned headquarters, refusing to iden- tify himself. “There’s a man hanging around Siegel’s room across the street,” _ he reported. Lieutenant Drum dispatched Detectives Seymour Goll and Harry Feig- man to the Siegel place. There was no- body there. Nine a.m., same morning, brought an- other call, this time from Alan Siegel. “Somebody was hammering at my door this morning,” he said. “It could have been Weinberg.” “Wait for us,” Siegel was told. Later, Siegel left for work, handing over his keys to the detectives. Feigman covered the alleyway between the two buildings, while Goll waited in the apart- ment. ; Just as he turned the key which un- locked the door, Goll spotted a shadow at the rear window. A man was sneaking through that window leading to the alley- way. Goll called a warning to his partner down below. Detective Feigman, drawing his gun, called “Halt.” Without an in- stant’s hesitation, offering no resistance, Harold Weinberg gave himself up to the police. The chase was ended! On the day of Weinberg’s capture the Bodenheim funeral was held. The River- side Memorial Chapel at 76th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, New York, was jammed with representatives of all the arts. There were, of course, the morbidly curious who get around everywhere; the honestly saddened, and cordons of detec- tives scattered throughout the dismal end scene. Maurice Roberts, white-bearded Village poet, was there, weeping copi- ously. “I am just the Prince of Bohemia,” he said, “but Max was our King.” Bodenheim’s first wife, Minna Schein, undertook all arrangements for the fu- neral and paid its cost. The poet’s old-time crony, Ben Hecht, offered to underwrite it, but Mrs. Schein refused. Solbert Bodenheim, the poet’s 30-year-old son, now the father of two children, was a chief mourner,. It was the first time he had seen his father in eight years. They buried Maxwell Bodenheim in his first wife's family plot in Emerson, New Jersey. The body of Ruth Fagan Bodenheim remained at the Frank Campbell Funeral Home, 1076 Madison Avenue. No poet novelist, she, and no crowds jostled to catch a glimpse of her. There had been a flurry of rumor that her mother was en route from Detroit to claim her daugh- ter's body, but if those were her plans, something must have detained her. She didn't come. Earlier in the day, the au- thorities had prepared to send Ruth's body to Bellevue Hospital Morgue, under a rule of the Health Department which requires cremation or burial within four days after death. However, a New York attorney, on orders from Ruth’s mother, arranged for the cremation of the body She was carried off in a cloth-shrouded coffin to a crematorium in Westchester. These two, huddling together in a life they never learned to contend with, were separated in death. If Maxwell Boden- heim could have known that, he would have released a blast of fury on all con- cerned, compared with which the sav- agery of his writings would have been as nothing! This, after all, was the Ruth to whom Bodenheim wrote: That in our minds and heartsway we were part Of some keen power, climbing and immense, And far from strangers searching and alone We felt that we had touched. ab- sorbed for years: That long before this meeting we had known An utter, deep exchange of joys and tears— Yes, on this night, without a trace of guile, Our hearts and minds were closely, softly curled. ... Weinberg was booked at the East Fifth Street station on two murder charges, after a day of intensive grilling. Alternately he admitted and flatly denied the bloody massacre in the Bowery, con- fiding five separate and distinct versions of the affair to the police: 1. First he killed Ruth, then her hus- band. No reasons given. 2. Ruth consented to have Weinberg make love to her. Bodenheim woke from a stupor and fought Weinberg, who then shot him dead but didn’t harm Mrs. Bodenheim. 3. He shot Bodenheim after a political argument. When Ruth became hysterical, rake attacked Weinberg, he had to stab er. 4. Bodenheim killed his wife, angered by her attentions to Weinberg. In seli- defense, Weinberg killed Bodenheim. 5. “You know, I’m not sure I shot Bodenheim and stabbed the woman. In tact, I didn’t do it. Maybe there was some- body under the bed.” _ But by 8:45, Weinberg was pretty weil tired of this cat-and-dog game, and the squad of detectives lined up for the grill- ing looked capable of going on all night, or until they arrived at the truth. Wein- berg broke down and really confessed. Assistant District Attorney Vincent } Dermody retused .to release to the press Weinberg’s statement. Nevertheless . it leaked. k Weinberg told of the fateful meeting on Third Avenue, followed by the trip to his room, where Ruth, he said, fell down or the bed, exhausted from the amount ot liquor she had consumed earlier in the evening. Bodenheim sprawled on the floor with his bottle, rather noisily. Weinberg liked quiet, and told the poet as much Bodenheim then picked up a knife with 2 six-inch blade lying on the chest, accord- ing to Weinberg, and in a slight scuffle the poet was cut on the arm Weinberg bandaged this cut while the trio proceeded to retire for the night- theoretically, anyway. Harold Weinberg =

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at hadn't been his igea He decided to make love Ruth. She didn’t resist t even confided that Bodenheim was ting too old” for her—at least, so he detectives. An autopsy med on the body of the girl bears portion of Weinberg’s story: Mrs. had had sexual relations at the time which the medical exam- i fixed as the probable hour of her nhewm he room was icy and Bodenheim's ne stupor soon wore off. He awoke and Max saw us as we kissed,” Weinberg state d (ll kill you,” the aging man said. But Weinberg shot the poet instead, using the pd-caliber rifle he had recently purchased or target prac tice. Ruth's loyalties when she was sober, jespite the swaggering, egotistical vouth’s boasts, lay now, as ever, in the firection of her husband. She leaped to is defense, and tried to attack Weinberg. He battered her face to a pulp, then stabbed her with the hunting knife he carried around, plunging the six-inch blade into her back four times in a row. Taken by surprise, the girl was unable to cry out. She managed to stumble over to the bed, and fell across it, dead. She looked so messy lying there, Weinberg said, that he threw the blanket over her. Now thoroughly alerted by the violence and commotion, Weinberg said he messed up the room so that it would like rob- bery, threw the fake I AM BLIND sign which he (Weinberg) had used to solicit alms on the city streets, across the dead body of the poet, and fled. He did not for- get to padlock the door from the outside in order to stave off the discovery of the bodies and the ensuing hunt. All day Sunday, Weinberg had walked the streets, right in his accustomed haunts. Ten o’clock that night saw him in a Philadelphia-bound bus. He ditched his gun in a Baltimore rooming house, he- said, but on police investigation it did not turn up. They did recover the hunting knife, however. Weinberg had buried it in Alan Siegel’s back yard at 311 East 21st Street before his last, thwarted attempt to find sanctuary with his friend. ’ From this point onward he hitchhiked, getting as far as Fredericksburg, West Virginia. Then (he just couldn't say why), he decided to return to the scene of the crime, New York City. They generally do. Arraigned in felony court before Magis- trate Louis A. Pagnucco, Weinberg hung smiling over the rail. The clerk of the court read the two murder charges lodged against him. “It’s a damned _ lie,” he shouted. Then he snarled, “Big deal—let’s make a big deal out of it.” He had a shave ow, and was sprucely attired in a ZIp- pered jacket and blue trousers furnished by the city. His clothes had been confis- ‘ated for police laboratory examination 0 loodstains. No shoelaces, no belt, no hecktie was included in his wardrobe, to Prevent a possible suicide attempt. Not that that would have occurred to the ‘Waggering prisoner, who scemed to be ding high on the crest of his publicity lag. He shook his head, in sheer admira- Jon, as he read about his own exploits in day's newspaper which had been 4nded to him. Although a patrolman was ‘ationed outside his brightly lighted cell, night, on guard, Weinberg slept the “ep of the just. Che next day, Weinberg proceeded to ‘age the most spectacular and balmiest ““monstration ever enacted in a court ot ‘w. He shouted his version of the Star Pangled Banner offered a smart, mili- tary salute to the A1dericad fag nangitns behind the magisirate’s chair; called on the whole world to protect his rights as a Citizen and a veteran; and smirked when called to order. Turning suddenly, and dramatically facing the crowd which had gathered for a glimpse of the insouciant killer, he called, still with his ready, radiant smile; “Tell me, do I look crazy? I ran away. Doesn't that show I'm sane?” Magistrate Pagnucco ordered the pris- oner sent to Bellevue for psychiatric ex- amination, It may be relevant to note, here, that a news item of February 14, 1954 indicates that legislation is now being considered to force released inmates of mental insti- tutions to remain under competent super- Vision, in order, the news flash stated, ‘to prevent unnecessary murders and other possible damage such as occurred in the Bodenheim case.” On March 3, New York District At- torney Frank S. Hogan announced that Harold Weinberg has been indicted on two counts of first-degree murder in the slaying of Maxwell Bodenheim and his wife, Ruth Fagan Jodenheim. Brought hefore General Sessions Judge Mullen for irraignment, Weinberg, asked how he pleaded, bit his lip nervously and replied softly: ‘Not guilty.” If Weinberg is adjudged sane and he faces the court again, it will be for the court and a panel of jurors to determine whether he killed; and if he did, what his penalty for the crimes shall be A word on Maxwell Bodenheim. He had his fleeting greatness, and his long drawn-out debauch. He squandered a great gift, recklessly, stupidly. But under lying it all was an overwhelming sincerity of purpose, at least in his earlier years Ben Hecht writes that “Bodenheim had a deep love for the underdog.” He wanted all the world for all the world, but was temperamentally incapable of helping to bring it about. Bodenheim became a rebel, an outcast of society. In supreme irony, society, by disregarding the staggering problem of aftercare for its mentally dis- turbed, released a Weinberg to murder a Bodenheim! HOW NOT TO MAKE MONEY George Held, seated, a guy who liked to make money kind. Mounting complaints about phony 50-ce es burgh area led to a detailed investigation by police. After weeks of painstaking sleuthing, were arrested on counterfeiting charges Despite in the Pittsburgh area, Held has admitted only ¢ his possession. According to arresting officers, half dollar in four minutes fiat firmed that the counterfeiter did a fairly g could be detected was by a somewhat lig made too much ot the srong nt pieces being circulated in the Pitts- U.S. Secret Service agen and city George Held and two of his assuciates the Many counterfeit coms detected o the making of the coins found in Held said he could make « “good” ! The phony half dollars, made of lead substapces, cost him about four cents each to make, he said Secret Service Agent John Keetl con- ood job—the only way the home-made coins hter weight than government minted coins Fay 33

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Riddle of the Fleeing Black Cat [Continued from page 27] and notify Homicide or Valley Detective. Hold for prints.” Meantime, the coroner had removed the body to the Los Angeles morgue for examination and report. Leaving his partner at the Johnston house, Ortiz brought Miss Levin to his office. A soft-spoken man, veteran of many years’ service, the sergeant allowed Betty to rest a while, calm down. Then gently, tactfully, with kindly guidance, he got her talking. What part had she played in this grisly affair? Who was she, how did she fit into David Johnston's life and What did she know? Seemingly with no evasion, Betty slowly told her story. She lived in Holly- wood, alone, was secretary to several writers at Universal International Studios. She had met David Johnston there, dated him for several years. He had been an as- sociate producer at Universal. (Among other pictures he had worked on the film- ing of Wings of the Hawk.) Later, he had become talent scout for the same studio, then had gone with MGM. For some months, however, he had been ill and un- employed. He was subject to nose hemor- rhages which left him weak for days at a time. Now, without steady income, David had been doing occasional Holly- wood chores, was trying to get back on his feet physically. “You and he went together pretty steady?” Ortiz inquired. “Yes, we went steady. We were even engaged. But—I broke it off. Then, re- cently, we started dating again.” She didn’t say why the engagement had been previously interrupted. The devoted Miss Levin took care of David when he wasceill. She had a key to the house, that she might let herself in if Johnston was too weak to do so. It was with this key that Betty and Frank Argall had entered the house that evening. The detective asked when Betty last saw David alive. On Sunday night, February 7, she said, three days before. She and friends had dinner at Johnston’s house, all leaving at 11 p.m. But she had talked with David by phone every day since. She regularly called him at 9 a.m. to wake him up, was his alarm clock as well as his nurse and friend. : “What about today, the 10th?” Ortiz wanted to know. “You talked to him?” “Yes. I called at 9. I asked if he was up. He said he was.” About 10:30 a.m., Johnston telephoned Betty, excited over an appointment he had for 11 a.m. next day. It might lead to a job. “Keep your fingers crossed!” he had said happily. “He sounded as if he was in very good spirits,” Betty asserted. At 11:25, David called again, He invited Miss Levin to lunch, and they agreed to meet at the Publicity Gate of the Univer- sal Studio at 12 noon. “That's the last time I talked to him,” Betty said mournfully. So at 11:25 David was still alive, and planning at least a half hour ahead. Betty waited at the gate. No David. She called his home. No answer. She kept calling until 1 p.m. No result. “I’ve been stood up,” she told a co-worker. After work, she tried again to locate David, fearing he might have been taken ill somewhere. She telephoned Neal Gra- ham, a mutual acquaintance He had talked with Johnston that forenoon, at which time David mentioned his luncheon date with Betty. Hence, Graham's con- versation must have taken place after 11:25 a.m. (when the lunch date with Betty had been made) and before 12 noon. Johnston was still alive very close to noon, “Is Graham a very good friend of David's?" the sergeant wanted to know. “Just an acquaintance,” David, Miss Levin continued, had had many friends, casual and close. He had kept open house for all, loved to have people drop over. He had helped many a Hollywoodian through a tough period, even had housed friends from time to time until they were able to set up their own homes again, The sergeant got no impression, from Betty's reactions, that she suspected there might be “another woman.” David had been popular, yes. But he had been serious only with Betty. That was how she analyzed it. Now Ortiz asked the girl to give the events leading up to the moment she entered the Johnston house that evening. After being “stood up,” and into the evening, the girl tried to locate David. Finding him nowhere, and getting no an- swer to her telephone calls to his house, she drove to Benedict Canyon, arriving about 8:30 p.m. The light was on in the bedroom, which struck her as odd, since her friend, she knew, made a practice of leaving only the living-room lights on when he was out. She rang the bell. Receiving no reply, she was seriously disturbed. She called on Frank Argall, who accompanied her back to the Johnston house. They opened the front door. One look inside, and Betty knew something frightful had taken place. Too nervous to do so herself, she had Argall phone the police. The detective listened sympathetically, then asked, “Have you any idea who might have been responsible for his death?” “No!” the girl cried, shaking her head in perplexity. “I can’t imagine who would want to harm him. He was always help- ing people. .. . They all liked him... . He wouldn’t have had an enemy in the world. Why should he? He was so kind!” She burst into tears. After Betty left, Ortiz reviewed his notes. There were plenty of friends and acquaintances to be checked. And back- ground on David to be established. And a motive. If Johnston was the friendly person both Betty and Frank Argall described, who would want to slay him? A woman? Part of the eternal triangle? Betty seemed to have not the slightest suspicion in this direction. The male friend of a woman? Possible. But if there were the eternal-triangle situation, David was an uncommonly— and successfully—deceitful gentleman, for his many calls to, dates with, tenderness toward Miss Levin drew an entirely different picture. A spur-of-the-moment quarrel with a friend? A swing to the jaw usually satis- fies that, in Ciro’s or Benedict Canyon. Theft? Perhaps. But anyone knowing David should have been aware he would make slim pickings at this particular time. And the killer did know Johnston, else how had he gained entrance without breaking a lock? The sergeant’s ruminations were in- terrupted by the arrival of his partner and Lieutenant Smith. Detectives were as- signed to interview every person known to have been acquainted with the dead man. Johnston's past history was to be run down. One by one, friends and acquaintances of the erstwhile talent scout were “checked out,” clearéd of suspicion. Stewart and Ortiz studied the dead man’s past. Pictures showed him to be a very nice-looking man, impeccably dressed, neat to a fault. He had been mar- ried once, divorced. He loved companion- ship. When friends weren't around, he telephoned them, just to chat. He started conversations with strangers in restau- rants, cocktail lounges, hamburger stands; sometimes brought these chance ac- quaintances home to continue a stimulat- ing discussion. “The trouble is,” Ortiz groaned, “he was interested in everybody! All of Holly- wood, Beverly Hills and points east, west, north and south could have been in his house at one time or another.” Close friends of the deceased spoke enthusiastically about him, and the de- tectives formed the definite impression that this was not because it is traditional to speak well of the dead. Folks liked David Johnston. None wondered how an unemployed man had lived so elegantly, for that was just Hollywood. Like any other movie personality, David couldn't afford to let people know he was worth less than a million. He must maintain his home, buy a new car, dress well, enter- tain frequently. That was part wf the scheme of things in the world of Flicker and Shadow that is spelled Hollywood. You had to put icing on your cake or you wouldn’t be able to buy cake. You'd be called a has-been; and a man of 30 isn’t ready to be called that. Lieutenant Smith and Sergeants Ortiz and Stewart were in the office, discussing the case, late on the night of the 10th, . when the autopsy report came in. Possible cause of death: Blows on the head. Prob- able time of death: Between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. With nothing immediate to be done, and no strong clue to pursue, Ortiz, on a hunch, called Harry Johnston, David's brother, a businessman, who, of course, already had the news of the murder. “When did you last speak with your brother?” Ortiz asked. “It was several days ago. We just chatted. I think he called me, but I'm not positive.” “Anything that sticks in your mind about the call?” “N-no. David did mention that a friend was coming to live with him next week, but that isn’t anything unusual, you know. David enjoyed good company.” The friend, according to Harry Johns- ton, was Richard Foorman, about David's age. Might Foorman have been moving his stuff in ahead of time, have got into an altercation with his prospective host? | Inquiry revealed he lived with his mother in West Los Angeles. It was 1:30 a.m. now, but Ortiz and Stewart drove out to his home. They roused Mrs. Foor- man and asked for Richard. He was not home. His mother wasn’t sure where he might be. As to his movements on the 10th, Richard had been home until about 12:30 p.m., she informed them. Then he drove her to a party, dropping her 0° and going on..When she returned home about 5 p.m., the car was there, but nol Richard. _ Mrs. Foorman confirmed the informa ion that Richard planned to live wit David Johnston. He was unemployed: wanted to write; David had offered ' help him get started. Richard thought i! would be easier to live with his tutor: The officers found Richard’s clothes all packed. None of his suits or shirts showe

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i he ploodstains.. Nor did min oe of the family ute examination car reveal anything sus- picious H The detectives asked M f \ Mrs. Fo suggest friends where Richard mila to ceivably be spe nding the night She liste) several, and by 3 a.m., the pierer ic caught up with him, 3 » aslee | held his jacket and slacks i A closet described by his mother as the Same as was wearing that day. There meet He blood, no suspicious debris. Anotl Paik: pect had been checked out Rae ay aed men got 3% hours’ sleep were back at the station Ig : é ‘ ater r ne é that morn- “Maybe we'll get ci today, Ortiz net Sor Aaah in the case The phone rang, It was N friend of David ana Betty ie nae the morning papers, clarioning the ur der of the erstwhile producer, Horrified he had studied the details, realized he ot a clue that might be helpful. e ee oe sh to Graham, David tele- phoned him shortly before noon the day of the murder. Just to chat. He inter- rupted himself once, and spoke in an aside to someone in the room, whom he ad- dressed as Bob. Graham asked who was there, and David told him that Bob Dens- muir—that was the way the name sounded —had dropped in with a friend and “I opened a bottle of beer for them.” _ Electrified, Ortiz asked, “Did he men- tion the other fellow’s name?” “N ot that I remember.” “W ho is this Bob, do you know?” Could be. About six weeks ago, I dropped by David's house. He was out- side, talking to a chap in a car. He intro- duced us. I think he called him Bob Densmuir, or something like that.” What did he look like?” the sergeant demanded. “Well, he was in the car, so I didn’t get much of a look. I’d say he was between 20 and 24, maybe. five feet eight. He had dark hair, wasn’t fat or thin. I didn’t pay much attention to him.” Ortiz hung up and summoned his part- ner. Stewart and Lieutenant Smith came in, Ortiz reviewed his conversation and added, “Now we've got something to work on. There were two people with Johnston. We know the name of one. Now who in thunder is Bob Densmuir?” They checked the files, came up with no record of a Densmuir being arrested. A half hour later, Lieutenant Smith came back into the room where the de- tectives were working. “Hey,” he called. “Here’s a funny one,” He thrust a Theft Report forward. Sub- mitted by another detail, it was dated Feb- _‘ruary 10. On that date, Thomas B. Foster, 6565 Sepulveda Boulevard (some four miles from the Johnston house) reported that his apartment had been ransacked. And whom did he suspect? One Robert J. Densmoore! And another man.’ Excitedly the men studied the sheet. This might be sheer coincidence, but it could also be the real break. According to the report, Foster, a grocery clerk, had attended a social function some weeks back, had met a personable chap, Bob Densmoore, wearing 4a Canadian Air Force uniform. He was about 26, 5 feet 7, with dark hair. The two men became friendly and, thereafter, Densmoore would drop over to the apartment Foster rented, for a drink or a chat. : On February 7, read_ the complaint, Densmoore came over with a friend who wore a U.S. Army paratrooper s uniform. Foster didn’t remember the second man’s name, but described him as about 23, 5 feet 7, weighing about 160 pounds. The men being good company, Foster urged them to stay overnight They aid—for three nights. The morning of February 10, Foster went to work, leaving his compan- ions sleeping. When he returned at 6p.m., his clothes were gone, as were his camera and his pals. : Things happened fast at the station from this point on. The detectives sent the name Bob Densmoore to the depart- ment’s identification bureau to check for a possible criminal record. ‘ Within a matter of minutes, the Cen- tral Office of Records and Identification had reported in. A Robert Densmoore had served a term on McNeil Island for illegal entry from Canada. He had been deported in 1950. Might have slipped over the border again. The lab called. Fingerprints on the rlasses and beer bottle had been identified as those of a Robert Densmoore, who had served aterm on McNeil. ... The chain was forged. Densmoore, a man with a record, knew Johnston, knew Foster. Densmoore was in the Johnston home and something happened. He was in the Foster home and something hap- pened. He was definitely with David Johnston when the latter died The detectives rushed over to see Foster. He retold his story. The owner- operator of the apartment court, Mrs. Lena Baumbach, said she had seen two men going in and out of Foster’s apart- ment that week, On the 10th, around noon, “I was doing the dishes, looking out of the window; when I saw a big car roll up, with these two fellows in it. A green car, I think, sort of turquoise, maybe. They drove right in and parked in back, like they knew the place. I heard them go TRUE POLICE CASES in Mr. Foster’s apartment. In a few min- utes, they got back in the car and zoomed on. She didn’t know the men's names, couldn't describe them except vaguely, but thought she'd recognize them if she saw them again. : If the men were in Johnston's home shortly before noon, as Neal Graham sug- gested, and at Foster's at noon, the infer- ence was that the murder had been committed first; then the men, in John- ston’s car, raced to the Foster apartment, cleaned him out and departed tor places unknown. But Mrs. Frank Argall had asserted that she believed the green Packard left Benedict Canyon about 2 p.m. How could that be? The officers re-interviewed her. She was calm now, could think clearly. And she recollected on this occasion that the car had actually pulled away around noon. That was close enough to tally with Mrs. Baumbach’s statement. “Let's get back to the station,” Ortiz suggested, “and get pictures of Dens- moore. We'll see if he can be identified.” They didn’t have to bother. When they got to the Valley detective bureau, Lieu- tenant Smith was hanging up the phone. He announced, “That was Chief of Police Lee Harvey of El Reno, Oklahoma. They've got our men. A patrolman saw a Packard drive into a sérvice station. He spotted the California plates. He remem- bered our alarm on the car—he must be a whiz! He saw a man get out and go to the men’s room. The cop called for reinforce- ments, they surrounded the Packard and found one man asleep in the back seat. “Might as well try and make the best of it.” uve cn

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The other fellow—Densmoore—they got in the rest room.” The fugitives had David Johnston's driver’s license, car registration and gas credit card. They had purchased some gas in David's name! Yet they insisted they had never heard of him. After saying this much, they clammed up tight. According to Chief Harvey, the sus- pects went docilely enough to the station, but there they got nasty. “They were a couple of snarling punks,” Harvey told Smith, “Maybe they'll cool off when they realize what a jam they're in.” The men gave their names as Leo Densmore and George Edward Long. Densmore claimed to have been in mili- tary service at one time. Long admitted he was AWOL from Camp Stoneman, California, having decamped the day he heard he was slated for Korea. A little later, the suspects changed their stories a bit. They remembered that they did know Johnston. But murder him? Never! They had attended a party at his home, they averred, on February 8, They left early morning February 9, and started east. Conveniently, they were out of the state on the 10th, when David Johnston died. Did they steal David's car? No com- ment, But the car made comment. It bore ‘plates issued to Johnston. It tallied as to engine number. It looked like Johnston’s car. Inside were dozens of suits, slacks, shirts. And seven pairs of slacks had David Johnston’s name on labels inside. The thugs hadn’t thought to remove them. There were 305 pennies, wrapped in a handkerchief, found in the glove compart- ment. — < There were two blackjacks in the car. But no bloody clothes, no uniforms. At Smith’s request, the prisoners were booked in El Reno on suspicion of murder and held for Los Angeles, pending receipt of warrants. Chief Harvey dispatched pic- tures and fingerprints to Van Nuys. Next day, the photos were shown to Mrs. Baumbach. She couldn’t identify them. Mr. Foster could—and indignantly pointed out that Long was wearing a jacket stolen from his home. On February 13, Long cracked. He signed a statement in Oklahoma, giving his true name as Ronald James Maurer of Cleveland. He met Densmore only a few days before the killing, he asserted. And Densmore was the real villain. When they awoke, the morning of the 10th, in Fos- ter’s apartment, ‘We needed some money, so Bob says to me that he knows a guy named Johnston and we could probably get some money from him.” Evidently, Densmore had a false notion of how much David was worth in coin of the realm. According to Long—or Maurer—the two men arrived at David's house about 10 am. “I did not know this guy John- ston, ... We had a drink of beer in the q WRONG PORT Seaman Jessie Lockler, looking for a taxi in downtown Houston, spotted a car with a driver sitting behind the wheel and climbed in, with the instructions: "Take me anywhere, never mind the fare.” The driver headed straight for the city jail, where Lockler-was fined $10 for being drunk in a public place, The car Lockler had climbed into was a police patrol car. ss nprnnesor 400044004444 129840 4041444907409 44 0480404098494 480 7440849844949 9 9900440084940 00) BOAEREREODAEREORESE kitchen.” Then Johnston and Maurer got into a heated argument and a fight ensued. “While I was scuffing with him,” Maurer continued, “I saw Densmore come up to us with a small log of firewood. I didn’t see Densmore hit Johnston, but he must have, because Johnston conked out. Dens- more then came back with some strips of cloth and we tied his hands and legs and put a gag in his mouth. We then put him in the bedroom closet and shut the door. I think he was still alive when we put him in there. We then looked the house over for money, but couldn’t find any, so we took his clothes and left with his Pack- ard coupe.” They went to Foster’s place, cleaned him out, drove to Los Angeles, pawned Foster’s camera and Johnston's watch. Then the murderers left for the East. The entire operation was not only ruth- lessly cold-blooded; it was downright stupid, The men went to rob David with- out ascertaining whether or not he had money. They could have subdued and tied him without killing him, but chose to be guilty of murder. They left their prints all over the house. They committed homi- cide for.a few suits of clothing and a watch. They drove off in tne aead man car, didn’t change plates, held on to John. _ ston’s identification papers, used his credjy card. And not until they were far into ; Arizona did they think to throw aw their blood-stained uniforms. hy “My only purpose in making this state. ment,” Maurer wound up piously, “is tg clear my conscience and to help the Van Nuys police clear up this mess.” Densmore, informed of the statement, called Maurer a liar. Maurer talked some more, to underline what a fine boy he was. The minute th had David crammed into the closet, he in- sisted, his conscience smote him. He wanted to call the police, but Densmore wouldn’t let him. ’ On the way out of town, poor Maurer’s tender feelings got the better of him again. He kept thinking of the victim, stifj breathing, lying in that cramped position all tied up. He begged Densmore to calla doctor, have him go to Johnston's rescue, “because the guy looked like he was hurt bad.” Densmore refused, and his heart- broken accomplice dropped the matter, That's what Maurer told Chief Harvey. And when Densmore was told about these last statements, he glared and growled, “I wanna lawyer.” : But on February 16, Densmore did some talking of his own, and it seems that Maurer had things a little mixed up—ac- cording to Densmore’s script, anyhow. Densmore admitted he was with the other man when the killing occurred; but as to Maurer’s statement that his accom- plice did the beating—‘“That’s a lie. Maurer did all the hitting with the wood. 1 guess he hit him about 20 times. I did not hit Johnston once.” When Los Angeles police officers ar- rived in El Reno, the two prisoners put up a fight, set a fire inside the jail cell. This was probably less an escape attempt than the opening gun of a campaign on the men’s part to have themselves ad- judged insane. As this is written, Dens-~ more and Maurer are in California, about to be arraigned on a murder charge. Sergeant Ortiz told this True Porice Cases reporter that Maurer, asked by Oklahoma police where he and Densmore were headed, said they were trying to make New Orleans by the first day of Mardi Gras. _ They didn’t make it. Possibly that flee- ing black cat jinxed their plans. Lust Spins a Deadly Web [Continued from page 40] broken; the ground was scuffed by numerous footprints. And extending from the center of the highway to the shoulder was a wide-spreading, hideous brown stain that looked like blood. Krall squatted at the edge of the road and examined the stain, while Dr. Adams, searching along the shoulder, suddenly stooped and picked up a sinister bit of evidence—the wadding of a shotgun shell. Not far from the spot where he found the wadding, searchers unearthed the dis- charged shell itself. And running from the apot at the shoulder of the road where the brown stain ended, there was a wide swath which seemed to indicate that some heavy object, like the body of a man, had been dragged from the highway about 10 feet into the tall sagebrush. The physical evidence was plain. Doc roadhurst must have been stopped on < the highway, slain with a blast from a shotgun, his body dragged into the bushes and later disposed of. It was obvious that there could no longer be any hope he had met with only a minor mishap on the range, and the little party gathered about the scene of his last struggle reluctantly accepted the inevitable. “T’Il call the sheriff,” Dr. Adams said. His action sounded the alarm that sum- moned to the hunt the law-enforcement officials of two states. So close was the site of violence to the Idaho-Oregon boundary that it was difficult to tell, espe- cially in view of the absence of the body, just who might have jurisdiction over the various phases of what now began to loom as a baffling murder case. Dr. Adams’ call had gone to Sheriff Charles Glenn in Vale, Oregon, and Sheriff Glenn notified Sheriff Claude Sul- livan in adjoining Owyhee County, Idaho. The alarm was then passed to both Idaho and Oregon state police and to Sheriff A. A. (Andy) Moline of Canyon County, Idaho, in which Doc Broadhurst had been living. s Word that the popular bachelor so re- cently turned bridegroom was missin and that he had probably been valet spread across the countryside, and cow- hands from neighboring ranches saddled and rode to the scene, a potential posse of vengeance. By noon, more than volunteers on horseback, in cars and on foot had congregated in the area and spread out in ever-widening circles, beat- ing the sage for some trace of Doc Broad- hurst’s body. 4 And so they made their next discovery Rudolph Jestrabek, Jr. a neighbor of the Broadhursts in Caldwell, and Dr. Adams, Pressing deeper into the sage, came upod © a spot about 30 feet from the high where it looked as if a man had lain face _ down in the final agonies of death. Yo could see clawing marks in the sand that had been made by fingers digging the dirt in a futile struggle to hold on to lif and at the other extremity, the len a4 man’s body away, there was a sem! circular line that seemed to have been @ by the toe of a shoe working back ant orth in a spasmodic, faltering tattoo. Cae eS OS af ee ee

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This was the final bit of hid idence that convinced bs timistic Of the ultimat ad taken place. Neight and pC lice stood aghast dowly turned to the qu vuS mute even the mest € tragedy that 0Ts, cowhands » and their minds estion : have to be answered next: that would have wanted to kill Doc Broadnnead Perhaps a hitchhiker whom he } picked up, Someone suggested B t St re if Glenn pushed back je-brimmed his wide-bri hat and shook his head de-brimmed “Hitchhikers don’t ¢ pointed out, “They'd never cet any rides they did. This looks to me more like an ambush. Like somebody who had ‘ grudge against Doc waited } : :, ” ne to come by. re for him "It looks that way to ” fire chief Krall, wie had: precioeeh nate hunt by his discovery of Rex “That w ld fit in with the footprints we found bai onthe S . und back on the Succor Creek road, where it looked like someone had a car parked and ee” away after tying Rex up in the Sheriff Glenn nodded in agr “Let's try to find somebody bo aight yee a car parked around here ) y, or seenan iteri on the highway, nan loitering around It was not until late afternoon that Sheriff Glenn obtained the clue he had been seeking. A cowboy, Clifford Dick- son, recalled passing the junction of the highway and the Succor Creek road sev- eral times the day. before. There was a car parked here most of the day,” he told the sheriff. Dickson said that he had first seen the car in the morning, with a man sitting inside it. He passed the junction again at noon, and the car was still there. An hour or so later, coming upon the car for the third time, he stopped and held a brief con¥ersation with its driver. “The hood was up, and I stopped and asked the fellow if I could give him a lift, Dickson said. “He told me the engine had broken down, and he was watching the car while a friend went to get some spare parts to fix it.” - Sheriff Glenn wanted to know what the man looked like, and Dickson said he was about ’: slim and sandy haired. aS ha been wearing a black shirt with mney white trimming acne the pockets, and a at. : be ee bout the car?” the Sheriff asked. : aude r was a -A Ford coupe,” Dick- ag ae an odd light blue Idaho license plates. ped he couldn't recall the . number, but he thought it started | “That would dig pela inty,” Sheriff Glenn noted quickyy. Taickaan recalled just one more detail. About 4 o’clock the previous piternonn he had heard the sound of a ag ih ear the crossroad, and an hour la rl STOTT V MAKE THIS TEST.... Place a coin the size of a half dollar on some pieces of thick cardboard. Plunge the point of the Black Forest Hunting Knife downward. The knife will completely jerce the thick coin—without ANY damage to the blade! e slerk graceful lines of this new German import also provide an ideal rec or den decoration; a dandy room gift for men! Import supply is limited and the low 3.95 price (postpaid) for BOTH knife & scabbard means THORESEN’S, Dept. 174-G-80 332 Fourth Avenue, New York 10, N.Y. | rohan elbeep thers Dice age Pn arch mb mel road's — oe My | l THORESEN’S, Dept. 174-G-80 352 Fourth Avenue, New York 10, N.Y. | eee Solingen steel knife on 5S Day Trial Money back ] uaeraniee. I 03.95 enclosed—Send prepaid. I | OD Send C.0.D, plus postage. | GiNemen zw ohcsebstieebete.ce sad Jucaenaees sa peae soit e Vi pdarens du.catss scien copes aide as aeeoevies ge geeuns 1 , Bowes eres sccsessigeses Zone... State... ..-.s55 I | (Canadian residenis: send orders direct to Thoresen Company, | 45 St, James St,, Weat, Dept. 174-G-80, Montreal 1, P.Q.) — ee ee ee oe ee oe a oe oe ed Outstanding Value! a small ranch on the outskirts of Cald- ing, burning central enigma were well. s throwing off mysterious sparks in all di- Moline sent out deputies to look for rections, baffling and confusing investi- Wells, but they could not locate the man. ators. It all began with a telephone call Elsewhere, too, the day ended on a note fom Dr. Adams, asking Moline to come of futility. Out on the range, SheriffGlenn out to the Broadhurst ranch. and his posse covered miles of country- The sheriff went and found Adams and side without finding a trace of Doc Broad- his wife, Mrs, Broadhurst, and a slim hurst. Night came, black and cold, and ranch hand named Al Williams waiting the chill, freezing wind blew over the for him. Mrs, Broadhurst, her face tirewe desolate prairie where men huddled with anxiety, repeated in greater detai around the wind-whipped flames of their the story she had told the sheriff pre- watch fires. viously about her husband's quarrel ar The next morning, without warning, Red Wells. The sheriff listened intently, the investigation took off on weird tan- but essentially there was nothing oe my ents that seemed to project themselves these details and he was about je into the case without any conscious urg- when Dr. Adams drew him mysterious y ing by detectives. It was as if some liv- aside.

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“I'm bothered about this fellow Williams,” he told the sheriff. “He fits the description of the man who was seen loitering around the Succor Creek road. and he’s got a Model-A Ford What’s more, it’s a blue color.” “Is Williams acquainted with this man Wells that Mrs. Broadhurst seems so afraid of?" the sheriff asked. Dr. Adams said that he was, and Moline decided to talk to Williams. The sheriff went back to the ranch hand and made a suggestion “T understand you know this fellow Wells,” Moline remarked casually. “How about coming along with me to see if you can help me find him?” “Sure,” Williams assented. “I'll be glad to do anything I can.” On the drive back to Caldwell, Moline steered the conversation toward the topic of automobiles, and drew from Williams the calm statement that he owned a Model-A Ford. Casually, like a man re- marking on a coincidence, the sheriff ruminated: “You know, that reminds me. ] heard that a cowhand said he'd seen coupe Model-A not far from where Doc’s truck and trailer were found. It was blue colored, they tell me.” “Mine's black,” Williams said quickly. He told the sheriff he kept his car parked under a tree in a lot by the Methodist Church, and as they passed the church a little while later, he pointed out the car to Moline. The sheriff made a rapid mental note of the license number * and observed that the car looked excep- tionally bright and clean, as if it had just had a fresh coat of paint. After a further fruitless search for Wells, the sheriff stopped at his office long enough to tell one of his deputies to pick up and examine the bright black Model-A parked under the tree by the church. Then he drove Williams back to the Broadhurst ranch, and the thin-faced, lanky cowhand bade him good-by, say- ing: “I’m going out to see if I can help them find Doc.” When Moline got back to his office, he found that his deputies had lost no time working over Williams’ Model-A Ford. They had scratched the paint in a few FOR THE BIRDS Looking down from the roof of a eye view as a policeman with drawn gun, a fellow officers advance to search two tee into the rear of a Third Avenue youths to lower themselves from the roof. New York City building, the camera takes a bird’s t right, keeps things under control while n-age youths captured in the act of breaking store. The rope in the foreground was used by the places and had learned, just as the sherjg had suspected, that the black coat been recently applied and that under. neath the car was an odd color blue. 4 check of the registration also disclose, that the original owner had sold it 1, Williams just two weeks before and tha, the license plates were the ones original}, issued for the vehicle, which was de. scribed on registration papers as a bly,. colored coupe. Having secured this evidence, Sherig Moline called state troopers and asked them to notify Sheriff Glenn to pick up Williams when he appeared at the scene of the hunt for Doc Broadhurst. Before the troopers arrived, Williams had a}. ready appeared and had started to take an active part in the search. Mrs. Broad. hurst was there, too, alluring in blue jeans and boots, with her titian hair whi out from beneath a cowboy hat. When Glenn was informed of what Moline had discovered, he hunted ap Clifford Dickson and asked‘ the cowboy to talk to Williams to see if he could identify Williams as the man who had spent most of the previous day waiting by the Model-A Ford. Dickson talked to Williams, but came back shaking his head in doubt. “I can't be sure, Sheriff,” he said. “He looks a lot like the guy, but he’s dressed different and I wouldn’t want to swear to it.” Though disappointed by this failure of Dickson-to identify Williams, Sherif Glenn decided to pick up the young cow- poke for questioning. A state trooper drove Mrs. Broadhurst back to her hus- band’s ranch in Caldwell, while Williams left with the sheriff’s deputies. Mrs. Broadhurst seemed concerned about the disappearance of her ranch hand in official custody. “He couldn’t have had anything to do with it,” she told the state trooper. “How can you be so sure?” the trooper oats “Where was Williams all day Mon- ay? Mrs. Broadhurst said she was certain he had spent the entire day on the ranch in Caldwell, though she admitted she had been sick in bed herself. Then she con- tinued to voice to the trooper, as she had twice to Sheriff Moline, her suspicio: the former ranch hand who had h bitter argument with her husband. _ Meanwhile, in Vale, Oregon, Glenn and his aides were questioning Williams. The cowboy denied he had any nig eid pers Bad happened to ind he offered an alibi with wh: t seem like absolute assurance. bis 4 _, L-wasn't even here that day,” he said. was up at the weekly auction sale in guiaribedade had asker me to go to check on the prices of th was being sold there.” eth He reeled off some of the prices he said had been paid, and exhibited such @ thorough knowledge of the auction that the officers were momentarily baffled. Williams was led away to a cell, officials began to discuss what he had told them. One of them recalled havi read a newspaper item about the date © the Ontario auction having been change® They used to hold it on Monday, but ! think they changed it to Tuesday just # couple of months ago,” he said. The next morning, before detectives had had a chance to check on the date o! the auction that was so vital to William: alibi, Sheriff Glenn had an unexpect¢! caller. This was Mrs, Broadhurst. She 2 accompanied by a man whom she !” troduced as Rufus Lamphere of Parm sof the |

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ie has some intormation | qh; tto have,” Mrs. Br think Oadhurst told the if Glenn listened while ined i Williams had ¢ in Parma the preyj ing parts for hi Previous Monday, + Willams had remained the scene by the time the a Sarda At this point, Sheriff Glenn b yonder just what was going on © saying that he ¢ first two places, up ine or his r hi ; Bically, began to ak himself: Why 5 ly Op a What is the truth hese eer versions? Even as the sheri Broadhurst, a Williams, and the Idaho-Oregon-Nevada highway to a gully Idaho, shotgun with which he had performed the deed of murder. ‘ Even as this was happening, Mrs. Broadhurst was furnishing officials in Caldwell with a new and different clue. Hardly had she returned home after leav- ing the office of Sheriff Glenn, than she went out again to do/ some more sheriff calling. The man she’ elected for her visit this e was Sheriff Moline in Cald- well. ; Se ea * . _ appeared, accompanied by Mrs. - ‘ handed Sherif Moline a piece 4s afraid this would happen,” she ost tearfully. “I found this note en I got home. It’s from a dangerous man who has been threatening me for a long time.” Sheriff read: Moline unfolded the note and idn’ it but ywboy strong arm didn’t doi Deis anything or I'll get you same as , d some cash I did doctor 1 peng! cet Pea “Who is Sweet Pea?” Sheriff Moline asked. ane nickname brother of her band, Leslie Merle killed in Europe, Melvin Lincoln, rance except ow rosters left Sited in’ the war, Lester him, and when she orm ie Ae eo oeat threats to kill her that this xplained Broadhurst exp the’ tein used by Lincoln, who had been and the twin, Lester were identical in ap- for a birthmark over she said. After former husband. Her hus- + if she Cvel walficd an yone else. Mrs. pica dturst upened her handbag ana took . ; : of pie ot that she said was a picture © investigators now found them- selves in a unique position. They had in their custody a man who had confessed to the murder and who had proved the veracity of that confession by locating for them the body of his victim—a body no one else had been able to find, And yet, despite this, despite the elementary con- clusion that this should have golved the Case, here was Mrs. Broadhurst running around and presenting them with a Mysterious, threatening scrawl she said she had received. Obviously, she was putting on an act to try to convince the authorities that the killer she didn’t know they had was still on the loose. Knowing he wasn't, detectives became intensely curious about the weird conduct of the voluptuous widow. Wiliams, they reasoned, probably held the clue to this mystery as well as to the murder; and so, as soon as they re- turned from the trip that had resulted in the finding of Doc Broadhurst’s shattered body, they sat the cowhand down for a five-hour tete-a-tete with district attor- ney E. Otis Smith. The district attorney with a court reporter taking shorthand. hotes, probed Williams’ soul and elicited the full story. . The nub of it was that Gladys Elaine Broadhurst was just too much woman for any one man. And Doc was too loving and trusting a husband. Even though, at 51, he had reached an age at which he should have known better, Doc Broadhurst had selected the young and vigorous Al Williams as body- -guard and chauffeur for a wife who was so constructed that. she could give even an aging man ideas. Williams said he had hardly known the titian-haired and vivacious bride when Doc assigned him to chauffeur her on a trip to California the previous August. But one day on the road was enough to begin his education. s Williams told it, they stopped at Reno the first night, went to a motion picture and then returned to their car. Laconically, the cowhand pictured his initiation in these words: “She made a remark that I looked a lot like one of her brothers. Then she asked me if I minded if she gave me a kiss on the cheek.” The cowboy paused, then added a masterful understatement: “I told her I didn’t mind.” The next day, the hired man and the bride with the flaming hair drove to Truckee, California, where they stayed in an auto court. “We slept together in a pup tent for the next three nights, after Mrs. Broad- hurst told me she was affraid to sleep alone,” Williams said. After three nights in a pup tent, they apparently decided not to bother about appearances and simply registered every- where they went as man and wife. The murder plot began to germinate after they had gone to a movie, “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” dealing with a wife and a lover who murdered the wife's husband. They returned to the auto court where they were enacting the real-life roles of faithless wife and ardent lover, and Mrs. Broadhurst remarked with a sigh: ; “It’s too bad something like that couldn't ppEpen to Doc,” The cowboy continued: “Then she asked if I had any idea how the doctor could be disposed of. I said I Check the Kind of Body YOU Want! RIGHT IN THE COUPON BELOW ---and I'll Prove j piste tell me where you want it—and I'll add SOLID INCHES of powerful new muscle SO FAST your friends will grow bug-eyed with wonder! I'll PROVE you can get the kind of body you want in just 15 minutes a day—in your own home—or it won't cost you a Penny! You wouldn't believe it, but I myself used to be a 97-lb. weakling. Fellows called me “Skinny.” Girls made fun of me. 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had no definite idea, but suggested he could become lost riding for cattle. At first I told her I didn’t want to talk about things like that, but after she talked about it more, it didn’t bother me.” Mrs. Broadhurst won him over to the murder of her unsuspecting and doting husband by reminding him: “We have already committed adultery and murder could be no worse.” i On their way home, on September 17, 1946, in Reno, they actually had the audacity to have a marriage performed that also made Gladys, at least, guilty of bigamy. She used the name of Elaine Hamilton and gave her age as 30, while Williams used his right name and gave his age as 28. Both said they came from Elko, Nevada. Thus, when Gladys returned to Doc Broadhurst’s Idaho ranch, she was united, in a marriage of sorts, not only to Doc but to Doc’s ranch hand. This slight sexual and domestic com- plication only spurred on the true course of murder. “J didn’t think any more about it than I had to,” Williams said. “The only time I ever thought about it was when she ex- plained things to me. “We decided that if he was to turn up missing, [I was to go on being her chauffeur for a certain time. After hé was pronounced dead and his estate went to her, we could get married again.” When Doc announced he was going to make that 50-mile trip to the Jordan Valley ranch across the desolate Owyhee breaks area, the ambush was decided upon. “I told her I didn’t know whether I could go through with it or not, as I couldn’t stand the sight of blood,” Williams said. “She asked me if whisky would help, and I said it might settle my nerves. She bought me two quarts. “Then she said: ‘Get up there—be sure to be there when he arrives, and for God’s sake don’t fail, or don’t come back,’” Williams described his long and anx- ious wait for Doc to come along. He raised the hood of the motor to make it seem as if his car had motor trouble, and he placed a 12-inch crescent wrench on the running board. Finally, about 3 p.m., Doc came along the highway, saw his stranded ranch hand and stopped to help tinker with the motor. Williams described the final, mur- derous sequence this way: “I was excited and nervous and shaking quite a bit. The doctor put a pair of pliers to the gas pipe to disconnect it. I had the heavy wrench in my hand. I looked up and down the road and saw no one, so I hit him.” The blow landed across Doc Broad- hurst’s forehead with fracturing force. The doctor dropped his pliers and reeled around in the road; then, desperately in- jured though he was, half-dazed though he was, he drew a jackknife and started after Wiliams. The cowboy drew out the shotgun he had kept hidden in his car, and blasted away at short range. _ The charge struck Doc Broadhurst full in the chest and he staggered back about 25 feet before falling, mortally wounded, in the center of the highway. Williams looked up and saw a truck loaded with hay coming down the road in the dis- tance. He had barely ‘time to grab the fallen rancher by the back of his jacket and drag him into the edge of the bushes, covering his twitching form with a blanket, before the truck came along. The murderer buried his head and shoulders under the hood, pretending to work on the motor, and when the truck had passed, he dragged Doc farther into the bushes and left him there to die. 4 Next, Williams let out Rex and tied him to a branch of sage, then drove the doctor’s truck and trailer off the highway, abandoning them on a side road. | Then he drove back to the Caldwell ranch and reported the success of his efforts to the red-haired siren who had driven him on to murder. ; “IT knocked at Mrs. Broadhurst’s win- dow,” he said. “She unlocked the door. Soon as I got inside, I said: ‘Well, I done ite “She said: ‘Good. Come to bed,’ “T said I hadn’t destroyed the evidence, and she told me to go do it and come right back, She told me to hide the body where it would never be found.” Williams toldgof how he had returned to the murder scene and of the desperate struggle he had had to wrestle the doc- tor’s limp body into the back of his car. Then he had driven 20 miles down the highway and had hidden the body under rocks in the ravine. The next day, he said, he painted his car black, hoping to avoid detection, and Mrs. Broadhurst gave him $40 to buy new wheels and tires; so that his automobile couldn’t be traced by the tire marks left on the shoulder of the road at the murder site. Word of this shocking confession was quickly relayed fo Sheriff Moline in Cald- well. It resolved all the sheriff’s doubts concerning the mysterious maneuvers of Mrs. Broadhurst and the veracity of the threatening “Sweet Pea” note. And so, on Friday evening, first-degree murder charges were filed against both Williams and the red-haired widow, who was ar- . rested at the same Caldwell ranch home from which she had sent her husband and her lover forth to murder. Conclusive proof of Mrs. Broadhurst’s duplicity was found in her own bedroom at the Caldwell ranch. Mrs. Adams pointed out to Sheriff Moline that there were fingerprints in the dust across the top of the furnace register in the wall. The CLEARED Mrs. Mary Lou Mitchell, mentioned in the story "The Bank Robber Who Wasn't There'—June, 1954 TRUE POLICE CASES—was fompletely cleared by a federal grand jury of any connection with the case. grill was taken off, and there, tucked against the screen covering the pipe, was an asortment of writing paper and two crumpled sheets, one with the words “Your protector” written on it, and the other containing just the, name oy NY Bid The paper was of the same texture as that used in the phony Sweet Pea threatening note, and handwriting ex- perts later were to testify that the hand- writing was that of Mrs. Broadhurst, “She must have thought, when she stuck the papers there, that they would drop straight down into the furnace fire- box and be destroyed,” Sheriff Moline commented. “But the screen over the pipe opening prevented that and pre- served the evidence for us to use later.” Conclusive as this evidence appeared, there were a few more startling disclo- sures to be made in the surprising life of Gladys Elaine Broadhurst. The first wa, the discovery that her “dead” hero hus. band was exc¢ptionally lively for a corpse —so much alive, in fact, that he was in the process of divorcing Gladys at the time the murder was committed. Located in Sacramento, California Leslie Merle Lincoln was told about the Sweet Pea note and about Gladys’ ac. count of his desperate twin brother Lester. Lincoln snorted in disgust and relegated the myth of the evil Lester to the same fictional category as Gladys’ phony yarn about his own demise. “T have no brother, twin or otherwise,” he told Sheriff Glenn. The sheriff compared the photograph Mrs. Broadhurst had given authorities with Leslie’s features, and noted that Leslie himself bore the birthmark over the left eyebrow that Mrs. Broadhurst had described as such a_ distinguishing characteristic of the imaginary Lester. Probing further through matrimonial records, authorities next discovered that Gladys Elaine had been a much-traveled redhead before ever she lured Doc Broad- hurst and Al Williams into marriages that had no shadow of legality. Including Lincoln, she had married and discarded five husbands before she charmed the bachelor rancher, an old acquaintance grown attractively wealthy, into a spurious marriage that she popularized by weaving about it the sentimental story of a blighted 20-year-old romance. The female man hunter, who col- lected husbands as easily as Tommy Man- ville does brides, went on trial for murder on March 10, 1947. The trial lasted 16 days and was highlighted by Williams’ own testimony about the manner in which his titian-haired Jezebel lured him into the gruesome deed of death. One point that had puzzled investiga- tors during the murder hunt was cleared up at the trial, when Rufus Lamphere testified that Mrs. Broadhurst had per- suaded him to offer the alibi for Williams. Actually, Lamphere admitted, he hadn't been telling the truth when he said that Williams had spent the critical hours be- fore the murder at his home, scrounging up spare parts for the Model-A. At the conclusion of the trial, the jury deliberated just three hours before it found Mrs. Broadhurst guilty of murder. No woman had ever been executed in Oregon, however, and the jury included in its finding a recommendation for mercy, making a life sentence manda- tory. i Williams later pleaded guilty to second- degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison, the judge commenting that he did not think it just for the ranch hand “under any circumstances” to “receive greater punishment than has Gladys Broadhurst.” And so the red-haired collector of men and the ranch hand who was the last item-in her trophy case will have the rest of their lives to regret that they didnt pay more attention to the moral of the movie that had suggested to them the murder of an unwanted husband. _. For in “The Postman Always Ring Twice,” the murder of the husband brings its own sequel in a bit of ironic retribi tion. The widow, who had spun the murder web, goes swimming and drowns, and her lover, who had killed the hus- band without detection, is convicted ° er murder—the one crime he di sorgmait ‘sie Ou might say that Gladys Flain Broadhurst and Al Williams had had 4 plain warning—but it's easy to see that this precious pair missed the moral.

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Crazy, Mixed-Up Kids [Continued from page 36] cen lost as she struggled for her life But Homicide Chief Golden wouldn't boy that. “If her shoes were scraped off the bebby socks wouldn't be tucked in them,” he said. “Also, dirt would have been ground into her feet if she had been dragged along after the shoes came off : and her feet are clean.” : Teams of detectives went into the Kramer Building to question the drug- store employes and other persons who had known Corrine—and they were to learn some intriguing things. Corrine had been only 16, but at that tender age she lived alone ina hotel room. She was a good girl, everybody said and attended sophomore classes days at South Shore High School. , Evenings she worked at the soda foun- tain, and she was a flippant sort of beauti- ful flirt. Boys from 15 to men of 50 con- gregated at the counter to gaze at her. It would be an intricate job to sort out the one who had raped and strangled her. With the investigation fanning out in different directions, there was confusion, duplication of effort and some misunder- standing at first. That must be expected in the best of police work. But with Dr. Kearns, the veteran of 2,000 corpses, all was orderly and routine. He was the first investigator—scientific or otherwise—to come up with definite Siok 9d Dr. Kearns almost always is rst. At the county morgue, he observed and made notes, while he had the body dis- robed and lifted to a zinc-topped examin- ing table with gutters and drain pipes at the sides. i He ordered the clothing examined mi- nutely and scientifically. He supervised the gentle scraping of the beautifully rounded body for all traces of foreign matter, _A technician clipped and pared her fingernails for evidence, such as skin she might have gouged from her attacker. Blood samples were taken and photo- graphs were made of her throat injuries. Only then did Dr. Kearns reach for a super-sharp scalpel, a bone saw and the other tools of autopsy. He was finished remarkably soon. His report was a detailed combination of acute observation and exact science. He had learned every secret the corpse could tell. Strangulation had been the cause of death. There were no other marks of serious injuries on her body. The hyoid bone in her throat had been crushed and the cartilage wickedly torn. Dr. Kearns reported to Lieutenant Golden on the clothing: “The skirt and slip were folded above her waist, but not torn or twisted. Her brassiere was unhooked at the back, but the fasteners were undamaged. “Her panties had been removed, but they were not torn, stretched or dam- aged.” Golden thought that over and inquired: “In other words, Doctor, you don’t be- lieve the girl was raped but, rather, that she removed or adjused or unfastened her clothing willingly.” Dr. Kearns, who can be testy when he encounters what he calls “opaqueness” in a policeman, a newspaper reporter or an assistant, snapped back: “You figure it out. You're the smart sleuth, I’m just a doctor.” Lieutenant Golden smiled sagely and sent out the word to his men: “It wasn't a rape murder. The killer probably was some man who knew the girl, the way it looks now.” Dr. Kearns’ scientific reports kept com- ing in for hours, but it is well to sum- marize them at this point: 1. There apuncently had been an inter- lude of illicit romance, because traces of male fluid were found on her clothing. 2. She probably had been nauseated be- fore or while being strangled, since sub- stance in her mouth and on her checked red coat compared exactly with her stom- ach content. 3. The blood on her abdomen and thighs was her own type. It apparently had come from small abrasions and tears, probably made by human hands—and perhaps, hor- rifyingly enough, after death. 4..The stomach and brain content showed no alcohol—proving definitely she had not been drinking for some hours be- fore her death. 5. The time of death probably was around midnight Tuesday or early Wednesday. (This later was verified by a food digestion progress computation against the time she had eaten.) 6. There were marks of a beating about the head, but not sufficient to cause death or serious injury. There had been no in- jury to the brain, laid bare by the autopsy. 7. The fingernail scrapings and parings showed no skin fragments, such as she might have acquired from scratching her murderer. 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available to other investigators. All, or any one, of the points might snare the murderer. At the drugstore and other business concerns in the Kramer Building, detec- tives were compiling the facts of Corrine Baldwin's short life. Everybody who had known her had liked the murdered girl, they learned—but many had been anxious about her future. Corrine had moved, the Saturday be- fore her death, into a $9.50-a-week hotel room. Was it proper for a 16-year-old girl to be living alone? At the police station, Mrs, Wawrzyniak attempted to explain. She was divorced from Corrine’s father, and now was hap- pily married to Henry Wawrzyniak. “Corrine was a headstrong girl,” Mrs. Wawrzyniak said. “She lived with her real father until two years ago. He is a carnival concessionaire with headquarters at Minneapolis, Minnesota. “She wouldn’t accept discipline after she came to live with us. She kept saying she wanted to be on her own. I finally consented to her moving to the hotel. “IT even went to the place and talked with the manager to be sure she would be all right.” The mother was day bookkeeper in the same drugstore in which Corrine had been evening fountain clerk. That gave her an opportunity to keep tabs on her beautiful, budding daughter. “I walked past the drugstore about 10 o’clock last night,” she continued. “I saw Corrine working behind the fountain. I was sort of proud of her, for her in- dependence, although I worried about her, as any mother would.” Mrs. Wawrzyniak broke into sobs at that point, finally controlled herself and said; “The next time I saw her she was dead in that alley.” She had watched Corrine’s progress in school, noted that she did well in art, ap- preciated her interest in student theatri- cals and felt confident she would do well in life, the mother added. Early on that terrible Wednesday morning, she had made a phone call for Corrine at the hotel, only to get the shocking information that Corrine had not slept in her room, No. 52, all night. She had notified the Grand Crossing Po- lice at once that the girl was missing. Captain Thomas Gorman, commanding Grand Crossing, now asked if her daugh- ter had had any special boy friend. The mother gave the name of Donald Mattz, 23, an Army,private at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. “He’s attending officer training school there,” she said. “He hoped to come home and marry Corrine next June.” At the drugstore, Detectives Sullivan and Bergman soon learned that Corrine had enjoyed the admiration of many boys and men—engaged to marry a soldier though she was. She had received a full share of illicit suggestions and whispered hints— “I get a lot more propositions than I do pro- posals,” she often quipped—but she shrugged away such invitations with the Alppant reply: “T live alone and like it—I’m. an in- dependent gal.” But the men and youths still buzzed around, gazing at her beauty, the swelling breasts under her starched white uniform , bodice, her trim hips. Many of them thought her age was 18 or 20. Beauty aids, her knowing air and her fast repartee helped add to her actual age. _Older employes of the drugstore wor- ried about Corrine a little at first, but they soon came to realize that she knew how to watch out for herself. Business at the fountain had been even better than its booming usual on Tuesday evening, the night before Corrine was found murdered. Boys in blue jeans, youths with fuzz on their chins and older men who should have been home with wives and children had gathered at the fountain. They drank malted milks or sipped coffee—and perched on their chairs to watch Corrine. Missing all evening was what the tiny, sexy brunette called “an older fellow— a man of about 30. He had given her an expensive cigaret lighter a few nights earlier, and Corrine was watching for him, “I'm going to hand him back his silly lighter,” she said. “I don’t want a fellow that old getting ideas. It’s tough enough to keep kids of my own age in line.” Corrine finished work about 11 o’clock that night. She changed in the ladies’ room from her uniform into the street clothing that became her costume of death—black skirt, white waist, red coat, green shoes. Mrs. Rose Roseman, cashier in the drugstore, left with the girl about 11:20 p.m. They chatted together for a minute on the sidewalk outside. Then the cashier’s husband picked her up in their car. As they drove away, the pretty, youthful Corrine was still stand- ing before the store. “I now presume she was waiting ‘for someone,” Mrs. Roseman told Detective Bergman, “but at the time I was tired and thinking of nothing except getting home.” ; As far as was known, Mrs. Roseman was the last person to see Corrine Bald- win, except for the murderer, until Jessie Montgomery found her dead. A friend of the dead girl, Mrs. Cath- erine Loos, came into the Kramer Build- ing. She lived at the same hotel as Corrine. “I had food at the soda fountain just before 11 o’clock last night,” she said. “Corrine served me, and said she would be home early because she had to get up at 8 a.m. for school.” Mrs. Loos said she felt positive the murdered girl had had no date set with anybody for the after-duty hours when she was killed. Sergeant Ward, meanwhile, visited the slain Corrine’s hotel, and was admitted to her room. It was a modest place, with ‘well-worn, furnishings, Corrine’s bright dresses on) hangers providing practically the only color and cheerfulness. On the dressing table was a little mem- orandum book, and the sergeant. thumbed it through. Jotted down were dozens of names—mostly of boys—-each followed by a telephone number. : He also picked up a photograph. It showed Corrine, pretty as always, stand- ing beside a dark, handsome. young man. Ward whistled with surprise. He recog- nized the young man at once. Pocketing the picture and memo book, he hurried back to the drugstore. , He walked up to Clarence Hjerpe, 20, a clerk, handed him the photo and said: “Here’s a nice sharp shot of you, young fellow.” ? Clarence seemed not in the least taken aback. “Sure, that’s a picture of me with Corrine,” he said, “What of it? It was taken right here in the store. See the soft-dri bottle rack in the ~back- round?” e The young man conceded that he had dated Corrine, saying: “I went out with her a year ago, before I realized she was so young.’ 1 He had gone from work directly to his home at 2111 East 67th, the night before, Clarence said, and he didn’t see Corrine after leaving the store. “T’'ll take a lie-detector test if you want me to,” he volunteered. “I'll do anything to help clear up this horrible thing.” Gathering about during this talk were two of Clarence’s friends—Lee Parker, 20, and Will Towne, 21. They introduced themselves and Parker said: “T can tell you right now, officer, that Clarence never would do anything to harm Corrine. He was always telling her to be a good kid and watch out for her- self.” Towne chimed in: “That's right. All of us knew Corrine and sort of watched out for her. She was a swell girl.” _ Parker added: “I’m an ex-Marine, and I'd like to find the guy who killed her, I'd know what to do. We Marines got some pretty rugged training.” 4 The detective shot a quick question. “Where'd you get that scratch on your cheek, Parker?” The ex-Marine grinned ruefully. “Cor- rine Baldwin was responsible, in a way,” he said. “I liked to kid with her, and I was showing her my Marine medals. Isn't that right Will?” His companion nodded, and Parker continued: “I held out a badge as if I intended giving it to her. She grabbed for it, and I jerked it back. In doing that I scraped my cheek with the pin on the medal. Corrine laughed at me for doing such a stupid thing.” Towne was nodding, and Parker con- tinued: “J wasn’t serious about Corrine, of course. She had a guy in the Army she was planning on marrying, you know.” Sergeant Ward asked them to go to the Grand Crossing station to make state- ments, and the three youths said they were completely agreeable. Reporters for the Chicago news- papers, meanwhile, had telephoned. Fort — Leonard Wood, to ascertain whether Corrine’s fiancé, officer training candidate’ Mattz, was on duty, or perhaps on a lea that might have brought him to Chicag: \The answer came when first Mattz an then his commanding officer got on the telephone from the Missouri camp, Ever. hour of the soldier’s time over a fe of weeks was accounted for. oa “She was a fine, well-behaved wi Mattz said, his voice breaking with grie f. “I last saw her at Christmas, and we an- nounced our engagement. She wrote mé about once a week.” ey In Chicago, Mattz’s mother sa son was much in love with Corrine. of us were fond of her, A wonderful girk, Tam heartbroken, and my son is crushed Under questioning, Hjerpe, the clerk, Parker and Towne gave full s ments. Each of them volunteered to lie-detector tests. ih “Tf you find the man who gave Corrine that expensive lighter,” Towne sugges be ‘maybe you'll have her murderer.” | Captain Gorman, who took statem from the three men, didn’t com: about the older man and the lighter, so it will not be disclosed here. He had a perfect alibi, in that he been working in a factory all night. By ‘I'm a married man with three and I love my wife,” he told the cap’ Corrine was a pretty little thing, but m gift of the lighter didn’t mean a thing. : I don’t smoke, and I found the lighter on the street. A friend was walking with — $

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a when | pathed it up. I wa i cap of coffee at the iountain thang ? srening, and I Save it to the girl iain , silly impulse, poe The man’s story check and he was sent home with warning to stay away f and a promise that, thi would be withheld. Other detectives, meanwhile, were j ; in- terviewing George Goetz} tavern with a Lats Aporees owner of a areaway where the found. He had an inte to report. “About 11:45 o’clock last ni * Lieutenant Golden, “T went ee tees door of my place into the alley, to dispose of es empty say bottles. “A car was parked out th people were necking in it. They torete apart when I appeared. I put my bottles in the trash and went back inside.” Within five minutes or so, the tavern keeper went on, he heard the sound of a car engine starting up. He looked out afer Pa DE went on, and he said he was ositive that no i fa in the alley, red coat was covering a _Goetzinger hadn’t noticed th ~par- ticularly, but he did recall that sway dizi colored, with red trim around the doors and fenders. It had been too dark for him to see the couple’s features, The lead foaked like a good one. The killer could have picked up Corrine ut fronteof the drugstore and driven into the ameaway. She would know about the 3 a parking place. the car, presumably, he persuaded 1er to remove her panties, take off her shoes, put the bobby socks inside them and unfasten her brassiére. But what caused him to murder the girl, if she had freely surrendered to him? What had sent him into an insane, mur- gering rage? Had Corrine threatened, perhaps, to tell his wife or to have him arrested? Goetzinger was almost certain that the girl was alive when he saw the couple. And there hadn’t been time enough for the man to strangle her before the tavern keeper heard the car drive away. “If the people 4n the car were Corrine aud the murderer, the man must have been frightened when Goetzinger came out,” Lieutenant Golden said. “He got out of there, I suppose, drove around for a while, returned to the same secluded spot and rican ge her after hay- ing his way with her.” ¢ ? here rehie general area, it was pointed vut, a “slasher” had terrorized residents between October 9 and December 2, 1952. That was 15 months before the Corrine Raldwin murder. The slasher, a teen-ager, wounded pad «ped at least six girls and women. is times centered in the Grand wer ng tea, where Corrine was killed. And he lever was found. . Women in Grand Crossing now pay ‘\ason again for double-locking t nie loors and refusing to venture outside dfter dark. Or so they. thought. ie As time passed without progres a identifying Corrine’s killer, decane” Golden and_ his chief aid eras Weitzer, saree back to Dr, t Scientific findings. rj The samples a mucus from the Bee Routh and on her clothing ha Ay ge Hen mportant significance, the eu sie pea bly freed a . iy and regurgitated slight! iden mused. elf momen- Orr walla be- was hold- &gher, some of the mucus must have got el s AsA ‘oo & Y 4 Say a Fh otf Oy ORY on his clothing, We'll have the lab boys Ook for such a trace on our suspect’s clothing—if we only can get a suspect.” Detectives were making a house-to- isn ae hie of the murder neighborhood, uestions cont an of every person they On Exchange Avenue just south of 75th Street, two of the policemen on their rounds came upon a parked car. It had no license plates, so they reported it as a matter of routine. The report reached Captain Gorman at the Station—and he noted that the car Was painted dark blue with a red trim. Within 10 minutes, Lieutenant Golden had Goetzinger, the tavern keeper, look- ing at the parked sedan. . That's the car I saw in the alley last night,” Goetzinger said. “I'm positive.” Golden had the car towed to a police garage, and the lab experts went to work with their fingerprint equipment, scrapers and vacuum cleaners to get every scrap of evidence. Since the car was without license plates, the ownership could be traced only on the motor block number—a task which would require several hours. / B Captain Gorman, meanwhile, was re- viewing the statements given by the three young men—Hjerpe, Towne and Parker —the girl’s mother and her co-workers at the store, The three youths had been completely co-operative, but the captain had a hunch. It seemed to him that one of them, Towne, had been a trifle slow about answering some questions, and had dropped his eyes frequently. Gorman called in Detective Sweitzer, the police department's ace interrogator, with a reputation for getting confessions, and explained the situation to him. “Will you have a try at these fellows, Leon?” he asked. Sweitzer would, and did. He first talked alone with Hjerpe, the clerk who appeared in the photograph with the beautiful Corrine. Sweitzer, who never uses threats, loud language or any form of third degree on a suspect, dealt forthrightly with Hjerpe. He told the youth: “Son, I've questioned hundreds of people. If you tell me a lie, even a harm- less fib, I'll know. I always know. “Now, we're going to go, point by point, over what you and your friends, Towne and Parker, have told the police.” The young man stood up like a cham- pion. He declared that his relations with Corrine always had been decent and aboveboard. Again he volunteered to take a lie test, as had his friends. He recalled seeing Parker and Towne in the store early the previous evening, They had been talking and joking with Corrine, he said, but he had not witnessed the incident in which Parker’s face was scratched with the Marine emblem. | Finishing with him, Detective Sweitzer told Captain Gorman: “I'd bet a month's pay that boy knows absolutely nothing about this killing.” = \ Towne was tiext to be questioned, and in his mannerisms and answers, the shrewd Sweitzer detected a faint hint of vasiveness. 4 : : He had spent much of the evening with Parker, Towne said. At one point, Parker had gone to another Walgreen drugstore, at 79th Street and Exchange Avenue. There he had nine with a girl clerk, e Bernotus, 17, Joenat confirmed Parker’s story that he took Joyce home from her job, ert turned to the store where Corrine wor ed. ‘After talking with Towne for half an WHAT SECRET POWER DID THIS MAN POSSESS? - Benjamin Franklin (A Rosicrucian) WHY was this man great? 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hour, Detective Sweitzer pushed back his chair and said: “Towne you're not telling the whole truth. I'm going to give you one more chance to come clean. “This is a murder case, and you'll be in trouble if you hold anything back. “Either tell me everything you know, or else I'll take you downtown to the lie detector, and we'll get the truth that way.” Young Towne stalled a little. He didn’t want to get anybody in trouble, he said. Finally he admitted: “That scratch on Lee Parker's face—I didn’t see him get it with the Marine emblem, the way he said. He asked mie to tell that story, and I did. “T thought maybe he had trouble with some girl, got scratched by her and was ashamed to tell it.” And so developed the first break in the Corrine Baldwin murder case. Detective Sweitzer conferred with Cap- tain Gorman and Lieutenant Golden. “Let's try getting a little more evidence before talking to Parker,” Golden sug- gested, and the others agreed on that technique. Golden asked only a few questions of the dark, handsome Parker: “Do you own a car, Lee?” “Sure, I have an old jalopy.” “What color is it?” “Blue, with red trim, but I don’t know where it is now.” “Why is that?” “Somebody stole—or borrowed it—two nights ago from in front of my house.” “Have you reported it to the police?” “No, I haven't. I let a lot of friends use the car when they wanted to. I thought one of them had borrowed it, and I didn’t want to have the guy arrested.” “What sort of clothing were you wear- ing last night?” “The same stuff I have on now.” With that, they put Parker in a cell— but first they took away his pants, suit jacket and underwear for lab tests. He was wrapped in a blanket until a policeman could go to his home and bring back clothing for him. F Detectives set out to check the youth’s background—and strange were some of the things they learned. Young Parker had been an orphan, but an unusually fortunate one. At the age of nine, he was adopted from a Chicago orphanage by Lanier Hugh Parker, execu- tive of a hearing-aid company, and his charming wife, Louise. The Parkers were wealthy, highly respected people, and they | wanted nothing but the very best for their adopted son. He repaid them by break- ing their hearts with deceit and wicked- ness. They sent him to three fine military academies, and he didn’t last at any of them. The incorrigible youth enlisted in the Marines when he was 17. A few weeks earlier, on February 18, 1952, lie had mar- ried Caroline Bolte, when she was only a few months past the age of 16. She di- vorced him about six weeks later. At Corrine’s inquest, Parker was to tell a touching, romantic story of his as- sociation with his child wife. When she followed him to his San Diego, California; Marine post, he said, she was pregnant and suffering from diabetes. He turned to robbery—for the first time, he claimed—to get money for medical care for her. Caroline denied much Of that tale. She was attending Chicago Vocational High School, the girl said, when Parker began rushing her with gifts, dates and a protestations of love. Now a receptionist in a Chicago physician's office, she re- lated: “I was pregnant, although [ later lost the child, but I never was a diabetic. He certainly didn’t commit robberies to get money for me. “I was a silly young girl, and I thought I was madly in love with him. I persuaded my mother to let me marry him before he left with the Marines. “We went to Crown Point to be mar- ried, to avoid the Illinois three-day-wait law.” Parker had a terrible temper, she said, adding: “We had several fights, but I never knew the cause of them. I have a chipped tooth to show how he treated me. “T pity him, but I no longer love him. I see him now for the grandstander he always was.” Regarding the robberies, police had trapped him in 15 of them in the San Diego area. It was then that Caroline had divorced him and the Marines had given him a dishonorable discharge. In Chicago, he had been arrested for burglary, auto larceny, indecent exposure, reckless driving, parole violations and possessing marijuana cigarets. All of this was a shock to Joyce Ber- notus, the girl he had taken home on the murder night, when she read about it in the newspapers. “He always was a gentleman with me, and always took me home before mid- night,” she said. “I liked him a lot. Why, I never thought he would do anything the least bit wrong.” It was late afternoon when the labora- tory technicians made their report. De- tective Sweitzer, Lieutenant Golden and Captain Gorman had young Parker brought to the captain’s office. \ Sweitzer wasted no time: “We've got you dead to rights, Parker. Your car was in the alley last night, and you are the man who strangled Corrine Baldwin.” Parker denied it, sullenly. “You had Towne lie about the, scratch on your face, and we're having the girl’s fingernails rescraped for samples of your skin,” the detective said. The youth remained silent—and then Sweitzer told him the latest development. “There was a stain on your jacket lapel —a stain you tried to clean and brush away,” the detective went on. “Our chemists have analyzed that stain. “It is exactly the same as the stomach content material from Corinne’s mouth and from her clothing. “And traces of the same material are in your car, “That alone convicts you, but we have more. “There was male fluid on your under- clothing, just as there was the same stuff on Corrine’s clothes.” - At that point, Parker cracked wide open. “Okay, I did it,” he snapped. “Send me to the electric chair if you can. I strangled her, but I don’t know why.” He went on to dictate an 18-page con- fession. Corrine willingly got into the back seat of the car, after he picked her up in front of the drugstore and parked in the alley, he said. Of the hot-breathed petting party that preceded the murder, Parker admitted: “She was standing in front of the drug- store. IJ didn’t have a date with her, but I tooted the horn.and she got in the car. “T drove into thé alley and we parked the car. She told me she wanted me to kiss her, We began necking. “She didn’t tell me she was a virgin, and I don’t think now that she was.” He suggested they get in the hack seat, ated be : / 7 or Parker said, and she did so readily, sccm- ing to understand what he wanted. He went on: “Tl unfastened her bra and slipped up her blouse. I fondled her. She was panting and loving me. “She took off her shoes, I guess so she wouldn't scuff the car. She then slipped off her panties and slipped up her skirt.” After having intercourse with Corrine, Parker said, he was disgusted with her. “IT didn’t think Corrine would do that with me or anybody,” he said. “I realized if I could get away with doing that, any- body could. “T had dates with her six or seven times, and I was thinking of breaking off with her. “T called her a little tramp and slapped. her. She called me the same thing.” Asked to tell exactly when he began to strangle Corrine, the confessed murderer said: “We were lying parallel with each other. My hands were on her throat, but I wasn’t choking her. “She started to get up. She was mad. She had a terrific temper. “I was so nervous I couldn’t talk. She was trying to get out of the car. She didn’t seem to realize she didn’t have her shoes on or anything.” He dragged her back into the sedan, seized her by the throat. “I grabbed her scarf, too. My hands and the scarf were around her throat.” She was nauseated and attempted to turn her head away from him before vomiting, he said. “T choked her, and I knew she was dead. . “T just had an urge to kill her, that's 11.” Lieutenant Golden asked him if he ever had had similar urges toward other people, and the young man replied: “I blow my top all the time. Sometimes I blow my top every day. I don’t know what is the matter with me. “When I argue with people I feel the urge to grab them and kill them. I don’t know why.” As far as the questioners could learn, Corrine was dead in the car when the tavern owner, Goetzinger, came to the alley. Parker apparently had been hold- ing her then, but sprang away when Goetzinger appeared. ~ He drove home with the body in the tonneau of the car, Parker said, went into his adoptive parents’ fine seven-room apartment, broiled a steak in the kitchen and ate it. Later he denied the part about the steak, testifying at the inquest: “I felt terrible for what I had done. I cried and I prayed.” It was about 2 a.m. when he drove back to the alley and left the body in the areaway, Parker estimated. On the day after his confession, police guards placed over Parker in the Burn- side station discovered he had knotted a handkerchief around his neck. The guards wrested the handkerchief away from him, although it was virtually impossible that he could strangle himself in that manner. “T want to die! I want to die!” he yelled. He suffered a cut over one eye in the scuffle with*the guards, and Lieutenant Golden commented: “That was a fake suicide attempt if I ever heard of one.’ State’s Attorney John Gutknecht an- nounced he would take the case agaivst Parker before the grand jury as soon as possible and ask for a murder indictment. The top penalty for murder in Illinois is death in the electric chair.

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Me NUUE and the Strangler {¢ ontinued from page 42] ncing rapidly 3 lobby table Anselmo assigne through a Magazine on d the couple to ; Z ue Foon an the tind Hose eg ee them as they entered the elevator, their ae around each other. ‘ irty minutes had barely pa ’ : the desk clerk, to his borpclae: sone youth hurrying down the stairs and out the tront door. There he watched him hail a cab. The man’s hasty departure sug- gested to Anselmo that the guest had for- got something elsewhere. Idly turning to the register, he noticed an error that caused him to frown, The man had regis- tered merely as Mr. and Mrs. Smith, 402 702 Street, San Francisco. Anselmo knew that no such street existed in their city. He would certainly straighten that out when the guest returned. . sr At 3:30 a.m., Inspector John Burke at police headquarters answered his phone. man's voice, which was a mixture of hysteria and caution, greeted him. “Po- lice? ] want to report a dead woman in the Park Hotel. Get over there as quickly as you can!” As Burke tried to stall the caller so that a tracer could be put through, the man hung up. Inspector Al Nelder of Homicide was immediately dispatched ‘to the hotel. x he found desk clerk Anselmo, still iting for the return of his fast- departing guest. There was no question in the minds of either the officer or the hotel man but that, if there was any truth to the claim of the mysterious telephone caller, the body would be found in the third-floor room. Using a passkey, Anselmo opened the door. The apartment seemed in good order, except for the fact that a woman’s garments had been hastily flung on the chairs. In the gray morning light, the men could discern the figure of what looked like a sleeping woman in the bed. The blankets were drawn up to her chin. Turning on the overhead light, Inspector _ Nelder recognized at once that stark mur- der had been committed. The once at- tractive face of the redheaded woman was distorted by an expression of terror. The veteran police inspector sent An- selmo downstairs to summon the medi- cal examiner; then he began a close aed of the room. All of the clothes—the blac suede shoes, an orange coat, a green pal blue piqué vest and blue belt with a fe A metal buckle—belonged to the woman, fit noticed. The one object which didn tas into this pattern was a gray gauclo sports shirt. Another odd note was the lack o purse. Certainly the one thing a wrOmape takes with her wherever she ese 4 pee that catch-all in which she carries er ried metics and other objects which aS cleta reveal her identity. Nothing in the poc ae of the woman’s skirt or coat gave any clue to who she was. Nelder's search was interrupted by the urival of Deputy Coroner Mar ket, the Quickly turning down the blan riers: deputy found that the redhead bf poco ¥ pletely nude. A bizarre note was right when he pointed to the. women’ 9 7 band. Clutched tightly in it was a> mitation pearls. . f From the bruises on her neck oem «ll Latward signs, Allison not rant ‘uman’s death as due to nen ii that lation, Most significant was the ig ae 3 ‘he had been dead for less than that the whieh coincided with the time man witn tne brooding cyes had left her. She tice to be about 35 years old, 145 pounds, 5 feet 4% inches. Her eyes were blue. The only scar she bore on her well- proportioned body was a slight one over her right breast. From Anselmo, Inspector Nelder ob- tained a description of the woman's com- panion. He was about 22, five feet 8 inches tall, weighed about 145 pounds; had a fair complexion. The most outstanding fea- tures.about him were his piercing eyes and his crew-cut light hair, Becdiiae the man had been wearing a dark tweed sports coat when he registered, Anselino could not tell the officer whether or not the gray gaucho sports shirt found in the murder room had been part of his costume. 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him to drive toward the Richmond dis- trict. The man’s behavior had struck the chauffeur as odd. Through his rear-view mirror, he had seen the youth toss several objects out of the window. At Eleventh Avenue and California Street, the fare had ordered him to pull up before a public telephone booth adjoining a parking lot. The man had been absent only a few min- utes, then had returned and paid him. When Gimbel last saw him, he was walk- ing along in a hurry toward the water- front section. With the speed characteristic of the San Francisco police department, the mur- dered woman’s fingerprints were checked with the Criminal Bureau of Investigation at the state’s capitol in Sacramento. There it was established that the redhead was Elinore Prout, daughter of a well-to-do and highly respected East Bay family. Es- tranged from her husband for several years, the woman had got into a minor scrape with the police and had drifted toward the primrose path, upon which hardship and cruel death seem inevitable. Another set of prints, picked up in the hotel room by the sharp-eyed detectives, was identified as that of Richard Manning Elliott. From their records, Inspector Nelder discovered an interesting report on the 19-year-old youth. Four years pre- viously, at the age of 15, while he was liy- ing in Los Angéles with his parents—his father is a prominent dermatologist— Elliott had been arrested in connection with the fatal shooting of his younger brother, Robert, 10. His story, according to the statement on file, was that he had just purchased a pistol for six dollars from a neighborhood friend, and was showing it to his brother when it had discharged accidentally, striking the child in the fore- head. Then—and this struck Nelder as startling—Elliott had telephoned the po- lice and had told them, “I couldn’t stand his screaming, so I shot him again to help him out of his pain.” After a thorough’ examination of the facts and upon the as- surance of two psychiatrists that he was “free of homicidal or suicidal tendencies,” the boy, although found guilty of invol- untary manslaughter, had been spared any reformatory sentence! Elliott’s present whereabouts was listed as being with the U. S. Navy; stationed aboard the U.S.S. Romulus, a landing dock ship at nearby Mare Island. While Inspector Nelder hastened toward the vessel, a dramatic scene was being enacted in the wardroom of the commanding officer, Lieutenant Com- mander Robert R. White. Hospital corpsman Richard Manning Elliott was standing erect, his face showing the rigors of a troubled conscience. He told of tak- ing a woman to a hotel and of having got into trouble there. As he was about to launcli into his story, Inspector Nelder strode up the gangway. His arrival aboard was reported to Commander White, who quickly told him what Elliott had said. Released from duty, the youth was es- corted to police headquarters in San Fran- cisco. He unhesitatingly admitted having tel- ephoned Inspector Burke to report that Elinore Prout lay dead in the hotel room. He immediately contradicted himself by saying “... I don’t think the woman died because of what occurred in the room while I was there. I think somebody must have entered after I left.” Instructed to start with his meeting of Mrs. Prout, young Elliott told of entering the tavern. “I danced with her,” he stated, “and I had quite a few drinks; then we left.” In the hotel room, the youth said, they both had undressed and had got into the bed. “While I was making love to her, she reached over and grabbed my wallet. I had about $50 in cash in it, and some travelers’ checks. “When I saw what she was doing, I blew my top. I choked her.” The last thing he remembered about the scene was the woman crying, ‘Stop it!” “That’s what made me come to my ete senses. I got up and dressed. Then I felt her heart. 1 don’t know whether she was dead or not, but I thought she was alive.” After he had left the hotel, he tele- phoned the police. “I wanted them to get there and help her if she was badly hurt,” he explained. In an effort to clear up the matter of the extra shirt, also the absence of a purse, Inspector Nelder questioned the youth. “Tt wasn’t mine,” said Elliott, concerning the gaucho shirt. “When I set out I was wearing a white shirt, a red tie and a gold tie clasp. The cab driver can tell you that.” He couldn't say whether or not Elinore Prout had a purse with her. “When I left, the woman had two five-dollar bills, which she had put on the dresser when she dis- robed. When I went out the money was still there; I didn’t touch it.” Shown a picture of the murdered woman, Elliott said, “That looks like her all right.” Sen “Where should we look for injuries on her body?” the inspector asked. “On the throat,” was the calm reply. “You see, we were in bed. She started to fool with my wallet. Then it happened. “Did you use anything except your hands?” Asked to divulge what it was that he had tossed out of the taxi window, Elliott said it was Elinore Prout’s lipstick and her handkerchief. “I was eliminating any- thing that might incriminate me,” he stated enigmatically. ee Steadfastly he maintained his inno- cence and claimed that the woman had been alive when he left the hotel; that some other person must have come in and slain the redhead. Despite his protesta- tions, Elliott was indicted on the charge of murder on February 1, 1954. On Feb- ruary 23, Elliott pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. He is now awaiting trial, at which time a judge and jury will determine whether the brooding-eyed youth, if adjudged sane, is guilty or inno- cent of the charge against him. Too Many Loves Led to Murder [Continued from page 47] and intelligent person I have known, and she amazes me more every day with her knowledge of facts and figures. I am not pleading with you, just trying to get a few facts straight. I do not intend to step aside. I do not intend to let you feel that I am intruding. . . .” Mattson’s letter ended there. The in- spector glanced swiftly back at the ad- dress on top. The letter was written to John P. Lange, at 2276 Illinois Street. Reilly then took out the three letters which had been underneath, Each envel- Ope was neatly addressed to Mrs. Estelle Jamieson, but there was no street num- ber. These letters had not been sent through the mails. They had, however, been neatly opened. The inspector weighed their bulky con- tents. They would run into thousands of words. Reilly began to read. The language of love is plain enough, but it wasn’t easy to believe that John Mattson, described as an exacting man of affairs, a fine ex- ecutive, could be the mooning schoolboy who wrote these lines: “Jennie, Darling: : “You have asked me many times to write to you and for me to tell you how much you really mean to me. You mean everything in the world to me, dear, and I mean everything. You are in my thoughts constantly, and I see you in everything I do or plan, and especially in the future. “The infatuation that was first there has since turned into the deepest love that anyone could offer, and I mean any- one, without any reservation. I say in all sincerity, dear, that I was drawn to you the first time.... “Darling, I give you myself, my love and all worldly possessions (which are nil) without any reservation and I want you to accept them as coming from the depth of my soul and heart... .” The inspector ran swiftly through these cloying lines, searching for something else, and he found it! This was the line: “Now, the J. of D. “It is unfortunate for him that he cares so much, and aie es I to judge the sin- cerity of any mdn? I feel no hatred against him, nor do I defend him in his way of thinking.” Reilly placed all of these letters very carefully in his inside coat pocket, dropped a few instructions to the pre- cinct men sitting in a car outside, then went to his office at police headquarters. He called a huddle with Deputy Chief of Detectives Marvin Lane and Detective Sergeant Glenn Coller. Reilly told them briefly what was in the letters, and added, “First of all, we want this man Lange. From the way it looks to me, he had a motive.” Detectives Paul Montgomery and Martin Blank were sent out to the ad- dress on Illinois to pick up Lange, if they could find him. The place was absolutely dark, and there was no answer to the bell.. Mont- gomery and Blank set a plant nearby. It was well after midnight when a 1953 automobile pulled to the curb in front of the old house. A heavy-set man got out, carrying a bowling ball. The detectives were on either side of him before the newcomer realized what had happened. Montgomery said: “We're police officers. Are you John Lange?” The burly man, about 49 years old, was suspicious but quite calm as he countered with, “Well, what do you want?” “Do you know a woman named Estelle Jamieson?” asked Montgomery. Without hesitation Lange replied, “I sure do. I know her husband, too. Has anything happened to her?” “No,” said Montgomery, “but we'd like you to come down to headquarters. Is that all right?” Lange didn’t object, but he remarked, “I'd like to know what goes. The Jamie- sons are good friends of mine.” ‘ Then he got into the car with the at- ficers. Taken before Inspector Reilly. TP ne Ie eT ee ey ee ee

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Lange appeared struck with i when told that John W. Mattson. had been killed from ambush “I know who he is,” Lan i Pe . , a “Sometimes he ate lunch Hay abiesite in the neighborhood of the Atlas com- pany. That’s where Jennie Jamieson corned and He knew him Pretty well too, I guess. eliver mi very day—that’s my job.” aes Buse, bvery For the present, Reilly withheld hi sae RE half-finished letter Matton had yor tre to John Lange. Casually, he “Did you ever hear of pe J. of D.?” of atiyone called ange was apparently probing th depths of his memory, but conlantcconie up with anything. Reilly said, quite unexpectedly ; é Why don’t you quit stalling and admit you are in love with Mrs. Jamieson, that she threw you over for Mattson, and that yon tellied him?” _Lange took this with i - abe without getting ex , “This is just nuts, Inspector,” he said. Mrs. Jamieson is married and she is just somebody I know well. I never tried to fool around with her in myslife. And why -the hell should I kill Mattson? You'll find out that I can account.for every minute of my time last night.” “Where does Mrs, Jamieson live?” knew the exact address. He ex- (that this wasn’t unusual, because uently visited the family. Reilly im whether he knew that Mattson tC ge replied, “I don’t know anything about Mattson. He was a big shot who came into the drugstore.” “Tell us where you were at 6:30 p.m., yesterday,” suggested Inspector Reilly. “That’s easy,” Lange volunteered. “I went home from work about 4:30 o’clock, and got dressed to go bowling. I left the house maybe around 5 o’clock and went over to see my old friend, Frank Patrick, He is Mrs. Jamieson’s father. I got to the house about 5:30 and sat around with Frank and Jennie’s brother, Ed, watch- ing television and shooting the breeze. I didn’t leave gall ont 8:30, when I went he bowling alley. ae 87 Lange concluded, two homicide men went out to the Jamieson home on the East Side. Mrs. Jamieson, herself, an- swered the bell. She had been in bed and came to the door in a robe. The detectives watched her reaction closely when they told her that Mattson had been murdered. They could tell it was a blow, but she was oise. x , roars ae object to accompanying .bem to police gated abe tiv. in the living ro i i cst she asked them to be as nigiet as possible because she did not bihag bs awaken her husband and Hon, Jae x Wi0 were sleeping upstairs. Her bedroom d floor. pte Famieson, 45 years old dooked at least 10 years younger. Her ae sark and curly, her eyes brown and fu a or pression. She has the tity Mer the street rl. Dres pee Lovie fic knitted woolen hat and . ‘ 1 > ' Hght coat rth: ef eeeoen Reilly’s She was taken to h , any punches. uffice. He wasnt Pe peations to an- . ' t a lot | r mae then Samiescds said the inspector: “Tell the truth pac you won't ge ®, enty already. ; “cP ipais abbot what?” the attractive Matron asked. . & d Mr. Mattson. . bout yon moved nervously in her chain of knew Mr. Mattson pretty well, s in love with Mrs. Jamieson, and: _ that’s true. He came into the drugstore where I work quite often. A lot of people who knew Mr. Mattson are going to feel bad about this, Inspector.” “Do you deny you were having an affair with him?” “Certainly I deny it. It’s ridiculous |” Reilly took the letters from his desk drawer. By this time he knew these let- ters pretty well, “I suppose” the inspector said, “you know what I have here. These are letters found in John Mattson’s desk, and he wrote them to you. They are very per- sonal. The man was very much in love with you.” | _ Mrs, Jamieson may have been expect- ing this. : “Yes, he wrote those letters and gave them to me. I read them and gave them back. That’s all there is to it. After all, I am a married woman.” _ “Well,” the inspector went on, “there is something in the first letter about a fellow called oth of D. And in the others Mr. Mattson refers to the J. of H., the J. of C. and the J. of S. What was he talking about?” “Certainly,” Mrs. Jamieson remarked, “you can guess what he means.” The: inspector replied that he could guess, all right, but he wanted her to tell him. Then she said, “Those letters are just nicknames for people we both knew, and it just happened there were four men with the Christian name of John. So Mr. Mattson referred to them as the Four Jacks. He, himself, was the Jack of Hearts, my husband was the Jack of Clubs, the man I work for, the Jack of Spades, and another friend the Jack of Diamonds.” “Who was the Jack of Diamonds?” “That was John P. Lange, a friend of my family.” The inspector looked at her very closely, and said, “We have Lange under arrest as a suspect in this case.” “Why John Lange?” “Because,” said Reilly, “he was in love with you, too.” “Mrs. Jamieson sighed, “That’s not true at all. John Lange had no reason to kill Mr. Mattson.” Reilly told her he was taking her in to see Lange. He said she would have a chance to talk to him alone. They met in a special room, but they must not have known that such walls are transparent and have ears. Mrs. Jamieson greeted Lange as “Jack” and he just said, “Hello, Jennie.” Her next words were stated in a mat- ter-of-fact fashion: “They seem to think you killed John Mattson.” Lange replied, “Why the heck would I want to kill that man, Jennie? You've known me long enough. I don’t go around killing people. I was with your father when it happened,” Mrs. Jamieson seemed glad to hear that. “Then I suppose everything will be all right. They'll let you go.” nge said he was sorry she had to be dragged down to the police station at that time of night. That was the end of their visit. ‘ Both were told they would have to re- main at headquarters for the rest of the night. é The next morning at 10 o’clock Inspec- tor Reilly summoned Mrs, Jamieson to his office again. ; “Were you ever on dates with Mr. Mattson?” he asked. "Not really on dates,” she answered. ore oe ° *iibwodt Staite @© BOX 1354, G. P. 0. NEW YORK 1, CROSMAN ARMS CO., FAIRPORT, N. ¥., They're SENSATIONAL! To your friends pri ht nd sashes nary deck of high quality playing cards. But you'll know their secret! Right in the middle of any card game yeu cen com- pletely baffle friends with @ dozen mysti- fying feats of magic. You con blew any chesen from the deck, seperate the jack cards with ene cut, and many ethers. Let them exemine and shuf- fle the deck whenever they please! Fosy to 1 ++@ few minutes offer you receive them you ten the tricks. instructions. 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“Last Saturday night he invited me out to dinner and IJ accepted. It was all right, nothing wrong.” “From the tone of these letters,” Reilly said, ‘you must have scen a lot of him.” She shook that one off. “Not at all, Inspector. Could I help it if Mr. Mattson sat around writing these romantic letters? Maybe he just got a kick out of it. They didn’t make me angry. No woman would be, You want to remem- ber that Mr. Mattson was a charming man who made a terrific impression on people. I don’t know just what it was— maybe his voice. When he came into the drugstore and started to talk, the girls behind the counter stopped working. They were fascinated. That was the effect he had on people.” “Well,” the inspector remarked, “you certainly had some effect on him, too. He knew a lot about you.” “The drugstore is a friendly, neighbor- hood place. You get to know people pretty well.” Reilly then produced the letter Mattson had written to Lange. Mrs. Jamieson read it through with scarcely the flicker of an eyelash. When she had finished, Reilly said, “You’re the woman he refers to as J. What about it?” The attractive waitress insisted that she didn’t know of any ill feeling between Mattson and Lange, and so far as she was concerned, there could be no reason for it. “John Lange,” she added, “is a very old friend. It’s foolish to think that he was jealous of me.” Satisfied that Mrs. Jamieson had told everything she knew which would be of any help in the case, Inspector Reilly * permitted her to return home. At no time had he had any doubt but that the woman was entirely innocent of connection with the crime. Meanwhile, Inspector Albert Langtry had finished his examination of the bullet fragment. Langtry’s report stated that the shot was fired from a 30.30 deer rifle. A search for this weapon was started immediately, while Reilly sent Detectives Ralph Oberle and Angus MclIntoch out to talk to Mrs. Jamieson’s father, and her brother, Ed, to check on Lange’s alibi. Other detectives were busy questioning IT Legends to the contrary, the ex- pression “to spill the beans” is only a few generations old. It originated, not on the farm but around the poker table—where chips were once called “beans.” Americans have always tended to listen to the voice of reformers. At a period when other nations regarded gambling as perfectly all right, U. S. towns and cities began to outlaw the practice. Gamblers were forced to use back rooms for their all-night sessions, Forty-fourth employes of the Atlas corporation, but their statements were mostly repetitions of the other fine things that had been said about Mattson. Three men who worked on the steel company’s loading dock said they had seen a man prowling around during the afternoon, but his description did not fit that of anyone so far involved in the in- vestigation. Two other persons had to be found. One was the young girl who had disap- peared after telling Liddell about the dead man, and the other was the man with the foreign accent who had first discovered the body. They soon showed up. Scared JoAnn was questioned briefly and sent home. The man showed up a little later. He was Maksymilian Smoger, 40 years old, a displaced person who had been a distinguished Polish air hero in World War II. He made his statement and went home. John Jamieson sat in his home, facing the detectives. He was a small, mild-man- nered person. He told the officers that in the last few years things hadn’t been just the same with him and Mrs. Jamieson. “T was working at the plant as a night foreman, but I took a day job not long ago,’ he said. “I thought maybe that would make a difference. Jennie wanted to go out more at night, but I don’t seem to care for that sort of thing. So she took the car and went out with some girls she knew. I don’t know who they were. Last summer she went on her vacation with them, too.” Jamieson called Lange the “Jolly Milk- man.” : “John’s all right,” he said. “He always has a joke and a good word to say for people. Sort of cheers you up. He taught my~son, Jack, the milk business. I’ve got another boy in Korea.” \ Had he ever heard of John W. Matt- son? \ “Now that I think of it,” Jamieson said, “he’s the man with the sick dog. My wife met him in the drugstore. It seems that Mattson has a dog just about like the little one we have here at home. His dog was ailing, so my wife told him what to do for it.” BEG AN and equipment had to be smuggled to the gaming table. It was not unusual for a poker player to rattle the chips in his pocket, or even spill a few. On such occasions, it was useless for the gambler to deny his activities; by spilling the “beans” he tried and convicted himself. Picked up by a public that likes color in its speech, the expression to spill the beans has come to stand for any action that reveals a secret. —Boyd G. Wood of a series j 4 “a Jamieson said his wife always tuox an interest in people who had troubles. Al- ways trying to console them. One thing he was very sure of; his wife had been home all evening and had cooked their dinner on the night of the murder. Detective Lieutenant Jocque had a long talk with Mrs. Mattson. If ever there was a case of perfect faith and loyalty he found it in her. She lived for John Matt- son alone—Mattson and her pretty brick home with its trees, bright metal awnings and her garden. Said Mrs. Mattson: “We were childhood sweethearts in Calumet, Michigan. I am absolutely cer- tain that John was always faithful to me, and no one ever could make me believe anything else, no matter what they may say.” Bivedtysvearcold Frank Patrick was a great friend of the “Jolly Milkman.” The old gentleman was much disturbed, and said: “Why, John is the best company a man could want. He wouldn’t hurt anybody. He came over here dressed in his fancy bowling shirt last night about 5:45 o'clock and sat peatne with any Ed, as de watching television until it was time to go to the bowling alley. That, I should think, was just around 8:30 o'clock, Ea Patrick, a bachelor of 40, was found at his job in an automobile plant. He didn’t agree with his father’s state-_ ment about the time of Lange’s arrival. He thought it was closer to 7 p.m., then changed his mind and said it was prob- ably about 6:30. The coroner estimated that Mattson had been dead about 45 minutes when he first saw the body, and this would place the time of the shooting just before 6:30 p.m. A neighbor said he had “heard the sound of a sharp report about that time, but had assumed it was the noise of back- fire in an automobile. Police talked to Lange’s employers at one of the largest dairy firms in the city, but got nothing but a glowing story of the man’s faithfulness to the job during his 28 years with the company. Lange drew about $200 a week on a wholesale milk route. _The Jolly Milkman had another side to his character, however, and this picture came from the woman he had divorced three years before. Elmyra M. Lange, 48, living in a trailer camp with her three children, said, “John has been mixed up with that Jamieson woman for a long time. Last summer he bought a 30-foot cruiser for $6,000 and took her on a vacation. He is a violent and jealous man.” Mrs, Lange hadn’t contested the di- vorce because of her religious convictions, but in settlement she had got the new family home in a very nice suburb of Detroit. She had sold this place and moved into the trailer camp. Lange had gone back to the old family home on Illinois. Homicide men searched this place from fruit cupboard to garret for the murder weapon, but they came up with only a .22 rifle which Lange admitted he had bought because the old neighborhood was “getting kind of rough.’’ He swore he had never owned a 30.30 rifle. Lange had retained an attorney, who had started habeas corpus proceedings. The police couldn't hold him much longer without a charge, and what did they have against him? Inspector Reilly couldn’t place him at the scene, nor could he produce the mur- der weapon. The man had a very fair alibi, even if there was one small soft spot in it. There just wasn’t enough evidence +> ie ess —

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wesnnect Lange with the Mactoun letters, It was two day as YS after out of a clear sky the nvebuoatese Bae s bizarre new tury Ze i ae Floyd Thoms, « fewopaper reporter, wa> COntacted by au individual from Mil- waukee who said he was a salesman, in Detroit on business. ess This man said he had the Mattson case. the nilling, despite - information on pointment with the man andl the, Sool an ea ak ae out Grand River Avenue. Pa ot sparen of dough out of your Seed arnt talk until I get _ “What is the nature of the informa- tion?” Thoms asked. d “W ell,” the salesman answered, “I can Se fe eae called Boopie, imate terms with Mattson for the past five years. She lives in Milwaukee and is my cousin. Mattson saw a lot of her.” \ Thoms said he didn't think his paper could do business without something more definite, but the informant wouldn't say any more. Thoms made an appoint- ment to meet the man a little later. He wanted to talk to his city editor. But the Milwaukee man didn’t show up for this second appointment. The next morning he was picked up outside his downtown hotel, as he was about to step into his automobile. Under Inspector Reilly’s questions, he was no longer reticent. &.. oopie,” he said, was Miss Marilyn * Monfrey, a divorcée. He knew all about Mattson and “Boopie,” because he had been on a New Year’s Eve party at her home when the steel executive was there. For the time, the inspector forgot about Lange while he went after this new lead. Contacted on the telephone, Miss Mon- frey talked plenty. She said she had not heard about the murder of John Mattson until her cousin, the salesman, called her ight before. f When I heard about this awful mur- der,” said Miss Monfrey, ‘I was going a fly to Detroit at once. But my cousin tol me I had better not do that because he had found out that John Mattson as a married man. This was an awful shoc ie me, In all the five years I knew hea never suspected once that he might be married. “I met Jack at and he has visite in our apartment ¢ those years. He spe! i , too.” : Pe ee ants details of Atatiaon ‘ay pe i Seco faae caster: for : rjobasat I 3 private. concern i bo iaenseae rents ite satisfied to rem ¢. I ieee erg ore give up his caret Detroit So he took a plane Sve ey ight to Milwaukee, returning on tay, sae long time, Mattson nad Fallen i nig distance every | pom Siler. Wi she had pententes ey this extravagance, so he on vies me ae a other night after _ a pea shot. him only tain evel in the situa- as now a Wry tl os sn the, apurder left iy ae rf holding the bag for $500 ch ;. She said: ; Milwaukee accounts. 3 from Detroit and e “Jack would coal ask me to go an seep ti Yer myself or for Mother, himself. I’d charge these t, then when the bills ’ them. aes | i : was “This last Christmas he ras Brien a party in Milwaukee, d Mother and me here very week end for all it most of his holidays we had our New Year's party this year | bought the food and liquor and stuff and rat Ae it. I don’t know about those ills. She recalled: “Jack told us he never relaxed except when he was with Mother and me, here in Milwaukee. We'd have dinner in the apartment, then sit and watch television, or play gin rummy. It suited me fine, too, because I work hard all week, and it was nice to relax on week ends. We turned down a lot of invitations to Parties.” All this from the 40-year-old “Boopie” Was very interesting to Reilly, but wasn’t getting the police any closer to a solution to the murder. So he went after Lange again, and asked him to take a lie-detector test. Lange's hearing on a writ of habeas corpus was coming up on Saturday and he was sure he would walk out’then, a free man, “I’m not afraid of the lie detector,” Lange said. “Sure, I’ll take all the tests you want to give me.” There were three such polygraplr ex- aminations. Reilly shook his head. The results, to say the least, were very inconclusive. On Friday night Lange got the longest grilling he had yet undergone, but he was unshaken. They let him go to bed. If the court ordered his release the next day, that was that. In the morning, Lange said he wanted to talk to Reilly and Detective Coller. Actually, the two police officers looked more worn out than Lange.» The Jolly Milkman lighted a cigaret and leaned against the bars of his cell. Then he said: “My mind is made up. I’ve found out aman can’t carry anything like this inside him forever. I killed Mattson because he wouldn’t stay away from Jennie Jamie- son. I hoped she could get a divorce, so that I could marry her myself.” It was the last thing in*the world In- spectof Reilly had expected—an open, voluntary confession by a man who almost surely would have been released unless more evidence was found against him! Lange willingly made a long statement to Assistant Prosecutor Martin Paulsmo. He frankly said: . “Mattson told me he loved Jennie, too. I know that wasn’t true. She was just another woman to him. He was a big shot on an unlimited expense account. He could throw money around. Jennie used to come to my house and cook my dinner, then leave to see Mattson. I couldn't stand that. I had to get rid of him. “Just before last Christmas I saw a 30.30 rifle advertised in the paper, I went out and bought this gun, The man even gave me some ammunition. I fired that gun only once before the night I killed Mattson. That was on New Year's Eve. “J figured my alibi out pretty good, be- cause Frank and Ed Patrick were used to having me around the house. They just didn’t remember that I went out, saying I was going to get a bottle of whisky. I came back with the liquor, all right, but that half hour gave me time to kill Matt- son and throw the rifle off the Belle Isle bridge into the Detroit River, ‘ On Monday morning, February 1, 1954, Lange was arraigned in recorder’s court on a charge of murder in the first degree, to await examination at a later date. | When he got back to the jail a visitor as waiting. ‘ wit was his divorced wife, Elmyra. She said she still loved him. is SAUCY- SOPHISTICATED Spring this PARTY RECORD collection af your next, adult party. Wetch your guests smile, grin—THEN ROAR, IN APPRECIATIONI You'll be the most sophisticated host in town. 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Sin, Sex and Sadism [Continued from page 15] selected comely Eleanor Welgoss, 25, who was known to the officers under numerous aliases and who had a record of seven arrests, including one for pros- titution. Back in 1950, she used the name Eleanor Spears and had then sought a complaint trom the city attorney against a night-club singer who, she charged, severely beat her and spat in her face. Lacking witnesses, she didn’t get the complaint issued. Golden's little side business cost him a $50 fine when a judge found him guilty of a misdemeanor charge of procuring. The little lady drew a similar fine. Beatings are commonplace in Holly- wood—all you have to do is look at the police files to confirm that! One red- headed fireball actress, Veronica (Ron- nie) Quillan, former wife of Joe Quillan, a radio entertainer, screamed rape after an evening with another singer, who had his face ripped to ribbons with a razor and had to have 35 stitches taken. The singer refused to bring a complaint and Ronnie went free. Another such case on file was the mystery “beating” of blonde actress Anne Sterling. Early in the morning of March 24, 1952, police were called to Anne’s apartment in Hollywood to hear her hysterically sob out a story that “four thugs” had grabbed her and beat her as she started to enter her apartment after a late party. But later, Miss Sterling made a fast switch in her story and implicated a wealthy oil man playboy. She told a strange story about a party she had attended at his swank Hollywood Hills home, and how everybody went home and left her there alone with him. She told police: “He came over and made a pass at me, and I thought he was kidding. I asked, ‘Don’t you realize what you are doing? I’m not just a little girl you can do some- . thing like this to.’ ” The action, she said, took place in his home, luxurious with a built-in swimming poo! and overlooking the Sunset Strip and a pattern of twinkling stars and street lights. It climaxed when, she said, he “threw me down in his bedroom, lifted my ballerina skirt and beat me with a cane,” - . _ Most everybody agreed that it was un- likely he was the kind of a guy to turn suddenly into a sadistic monster and beat up a girl with a cane, and Anne’s story was written off as nothing more than a play for publicity. Nevertheless, she sued the oil man for $7,840 damages, and last August 11, finally dropped the charges. For sheer wackiness, the now-famed “Battle of the Lawn” between Tom Neal and Franchot Tone ranks high in tHe saga of Hollywood. Early in the morning of September 14, 1951, actor Tom Neal, the pride of Muscle Beach, and skinny Franchot Tone slugged it out for the love of fickle-minded Barbara Payton, a lush blonde. Barbara had played one of the hand- some men against the other until both blew their corks when Barbara and Tone came home from a party at 1:30 a.m. and found Neal waiting for them. When he saw Barbara kiss Tone, said Neal, the “old adrenalin began to boil uside of me... . I was-on him like a cat. 1 gave him a left and a right and a left and a right and a right and a left... ie Franchot went to the hospital with a cerebral concussion, fractured nose and cheekbone, and a demolished pride. But he married Barbara anyway, for a while, The blonde then switched her ricochet romance back to Neal, who, she said, was “more exciting.” Barbara is currently touring the country with her cave man, Neal, in a lusty James M. Cain play, “The Postman Always Rings Twice.” , Incidentally, Tone's earlier marriage breakup with Jean Wallace prompted that blonde beauty to stab herself in an abor- tive suicide attempt—the route many a frustrated movie girl takes. Barbara Payton’s predilection for run- ning with odd characters got her mixed up in a grand jury investigation of one of the most frightening of all Hollywood's evils—the dope traffic. Ever since the gangland slaying of Bugsy Siegel, the West Coast salesman for Murder, Incorporated, in Beverly Hills, a bitter underworld war has raged for control of the narcotic main line into Hollywood, one of its most lucrative out- lets. Rise of the narco traffic was coincident with the breakup of the racing wire net- work in California, following Siegel’s passing. First, Continental Press Service, and then its Trans-America, were cut off at the Cali- fornia border, largely through the efforts of shrewd, tough H. G. Robinson, chief investigator for former Governor Earl Warren’s California Crime Commission. Robinson, who subsequently ran inter- ference for Senator Estes Kefauver in his cross-country crime-busting spree, learned that the racing wire networks were the framework on which practically all the organized crime in Hollywood— mat throughout southern California—was uilt. Subsequently, the smashing of the wire syndicates dealt a death blow to eastern control of the, West Coast underworld and left the concentration of power.in Las Vegas, Nevada. This left Hollywood with an isolated pocket of old-line Mafia hood- lums, who had to turn to other sources of income when bookmaking and murder were made unprofitable, Las Vegas meanwhile kept a watchful eye on Hollywood, and saw to it that there were sufficient lures to keep the money crowd pouring millions over their crap tables without competition from Los Angeles. And affable little Mickey Cohen— Hollywood's most famed bookie—saw his betting empire collapse when the Federal men nailed him on an income-tax evasion rap and hustled him off to dreary McNeill Island, forcing him to sell his swank Brentwood hide-away. Mickey’s departure from the film city left the Strip ripe for new action. Michael’s—as The Mick called his haber- dashery front at 8804 Sunset—closed its doors and things were downright dull for the movie colony folks whos liked the noise of gunfire echoing up and down the glitter street when Cohen’s hoodlums rode high. It was a sad day when Mickey's hench- men pitched in and helped his fabulous close-out sale. Movie stars were attended by tough-faced gunsels, who offered $50 shirts and $10 socks at half price. When one starlet asked if a pair of Argyle socks were all-wool, Mickey’s salesman snapped: “Real wool? Hell, lady, they’re hunnert-proof!” But something new had to be added when Cohen and the racing wire action left. Dope supplied the answer. short-lived competitor, - It came to Hollywood in a trickle at first, then in a steady stream. Narcotics agents knew much of it came from Tijuana, the Mexican border town near San Diego, California, where Mafa mobsters hung out. Police put tails on every known member of the West Coast Mafia mob, headed by graying old Jack Dragna (he’s currently fighting deporta- tion as an undesirable alien who lied his way into America). They watched every move of the notorious Sica Brothers—Fred and Joe —but the Sicas played dumb and the cops couldn’t build a case. Joe, incidentally, was fingered by the California Crime Commission as the underling of Dragna, whom they described as the “Al Capone of Los Angeles.” Then the cops began checking off all the side street joints around Hollywood to pick up known users and work the narco route back toward the source. Many a musician was picked up by police in vice raids on Hollywood night spots, but always it turned out that the supply route ended in a blind alley when narcotics investigators tried to trace it back to the source. That happened when five musicians, including members of a top name band, and a blond canary were arrested in an apartment near Hollywood and Vine, last May. Another Hollywood dope raid the following June 1 netted more than $1,000,- 000 worth of heroin cached by two men in a Sunset Boulevard motel, and this batch was tracked as far as Honolulu. Stanley Getz, rated as the nation’s top . hot jazz saxophonist, on February 17, 1954, was sentenced by Los Angeles municipal judge Gerald C. Keppel to six months in jail when found guilty on a narcotics charge. But what police wanted to crack was the main line into Hollywood from nearby Mexico. Early in February, 1950, they thought they had it, when a stool pigeon tipped them off that an auto-body worker named Abe Davidian was running heroin into Hollywood. If they could get the goods on Davidian and make him talk, he could no doubt tell them where the stuff came from. State. police spotted Davidian racing over the Ridge Route:one night, in a big Cadillac, and shot out his tires. They had him cold with a $100,000 load of “H,” and after a long talk Abe agreed to tell them the inside dope on the narcotic traffic route that wound through Hollywood. What Abe told the cops led to a Federal grand jury indictment of 16 members of the dope mob, including notorious Joe and Fred Sica. But before Abe could ap- pear before the jury, he was shot to death in his mother’s Frestio home—thus creat- ing a who-dunnit murder mystery, the solution of which the underworld has kept a tightly guarded secret. That shot blew the State’s case on the Hollywood dope-traffic hustlers—a case that was reopened last October 29 in San Francisco with the questioning of Abe (The Trigger) Chapman, a member of the notorious Waxey Gordon heroin syndi- cate. 7 But careful police digging disclosed that one suspected member of the Holly- wood dope mob, Stanley Adams, was missing from his usual haunts the night of February 28, 1950, when Abe got shot. Adams swore he was in a Hollywood barber shop getting a haircut that day; but the barber swore he wasn’t, an Adams was convicted of perjury and packed off to jail. If he wasn’t getting a haircut, or mur- dering Abe Davidian, where was he on ib yt einen ts

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that night? The Federa] the answer from bubbly —Adams had been her her apartment! Adams at that time w a chap named Don Strip character who di jail for possessin grand jury got Barbara Payton dinner guest at as a roommate of Cougar, a Sunset ga i. ers in county ‘ Pail .2 load of marijuana, sas, he kept buried in the Hollywood The night that Davidia e = 1 Was mur- dered, the story goes, Adams and Cougar hi Couns aug at a dinner party the Hale wond Geni pare eCasen con “het brought al oulevard apartment. Adams » aad ong a pretty young actress. Adams got a phone call,” Cougar re- called later, when questioned about that evenings activities. “The voice said Davidian was dead. So we went out and bought the papers and read about it.” Cougar said Adams told him: “Remem- ber where we were tonight—we may get guesiones about this!” (He was so right Rois ep ey dart for, and got, the story he dinner Barbara and Don.) party sare Adams had first turned up on the Strip as a hanger-on at the famed Schwab’s Drug Store at the corner of Laurel Canyon and Sunset Boulevard. There, any time of day or night, you're liable to find a nude in a mink coat, or a dark- “pecan director sipping a bromo. chwab’s is where agents, actors, respectable people, bums, narcos and such meet to exchange the time of day and other lb tangible Boa OHCs: It was gece that Adams met Cougar and moved mto the Sunset Strip social whirl. Cougar was then dating a platinum blonde actress named Lila Leeds, another kid who liked her narcotics and couldn't shake the habit (she was arrested on November 19, 1953, at Joliet State Prison, Illinois, when a matron found a hypo- dermic needle and morphine pills hidden in her brassiére after she went there to visit her husband, pianist Irvin Rochlin, 27, doing time for robbery). Lila may perhaps be excused for pack- ing her hypo kit into jail, because she also carried a letter from the state authorities identifying her as an addict. Under an Illinois law, addicts can use such letters to buy drugs by prescription so they don’t have to go to illegal mar- kets for it. - sates a check on the letter, Lila, who had brought her two children with her, was turned loose. ; Her husband, who had been her piano accompanist when she ae va iieane i i as convicte night-club stint, W diy ited r > and sentenced to s¢ I peepee at Joliet for knocking over a Chicago gas station, not once bat eaad With Lila, things just seemed always o wrong. ; ‘ * The jinx started with the notorious ; : . Robert. Mitchum marijuana cas Micciist and a pal, Robin iy ies gone house hunting after ie wi . oar turned him out, and they ended up , ue lush Hollywood ay They didn’t buy the house, but ses Mae Se Vicki Evans. along with little dancer eigenen Marijuana smoke and so floating through their little dream world i i d when the vice cops broke in and pinche all four. Of the four, all b guilty of conspiracy ut Vicki were found to possess sens Uan The little dancer, who had to be brough i sas f to stand trial, wi back from New ‘i but Mitchum, Lila ‘to 8 ays in ad to spend 60 da} ij 10ke, pia ile ars on probation. ind a couple more Ye The movie town’s strange acceptance of gangsters for pals seems to date back to the World War II period when the movie colony thought it was “fun” to have a bunch of little hoodlums around for laughs. Two such characters who muscled into the fast set were Abraham Smickoff, alias Allen Smiley, and Antonio Icaza. In 1944 Smiley and Icaza somehow happened to be at a gathering of the clan at the Sun- set Plaza apartment of band leader Tommy Dorsey, when Jon Hall, the mus- cular actor, walked in and was intro- duced to Dorsey’s wife, the former actress Pat Dane. Something transpired in that meeting to cause a “misunderstanding” that pre- cipitated the famed “Battle of thé Bal- cony,” in which Hall was hit with a flowerpot and sundry other objects. Hall subsequently hauled all four into court on assault charges which, after a drawn-out hearing that led nowhere, were tossed out. But so was Icaza—as an un- desirable alien. Smiley hung around long enough to be sitting next to Bugsy Siegel when he was slain, and then the Immigra- tion boys gave him the fast shuffle. In 1950, Smiley. was hustled off to McNeill Island to sweat out a one-year stretch for falsely claiming American citizenship. And then, he curiously be- came a man without a country. No other nation would agree to accept Smiley as its native son, so the Immigra- tion officials decided that, so long as he couldn’t. get travel papers, they’d just eave him here, under bond to Uncle Sam. Today he may be found at any of the nation’s hot spots, enjoying his freedom and hobnobbing with the cream of so- ciety. From time to time other gangsters have held court in Hollywood, the most notorious being ex-Chicago hustler Willie Bioff, who rose to become boss of the AFL International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employes and to shake down the Hollywood studios for $1,800,000 in a fan- tastic blackmail scheme. Bioff told the details of that amazing pressure play when, in 1948, he was called to testify in a tax hearing against the estate of the late Frank (The Enforcer) Nitti, who had cut in for a third of Bioff’s shakedown racket. There was suave Johnny Rosselli, an- other Bioff hoodlum, who rubbed elbows with Columbia Pictures president Harry Cohen and other film big shots, and mar- ried beautiful June Lang, a lovely blonde actress. Rosselli was convicted along with four other hoods, including Charles (Cherry Nose) Gioe and Louis (Little New York) Campagna, of conspiring to extort more than $1,000,000 from the studio bosses under threat of yanking every projectionist in the nation from his booth. ; Rosselli, after his release from prison, returned to Hollywood and signed on with Eagle Lion Studios as a technical adviser for prison films—after all, he was now an expert. But an alleged parole violation got him into another jam—this time for associating with unsavory char- P { é ey back as 1931, Rosselli had been seen by police in the company of Mafia mobster Jack Dragna, when the latter was picked up at 4 a.m. on a downtown Los Angeles street corner toting a ma- shi n, x “ put the U.S. Parole Board in Washing- ton, D. 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his parole by palling with unsavory char- acters. This matter of questionable associates might well have included any of a num- ber of prominent performers who couldn't seem to stay out of trouble, like the virile stars who felt they had to prove their manhood by patronizing such establish- ments as, for example, Brenda Allen’s famed assignation parlor. Reporters who covered the police raid on that hot spot recall Brenda’s famous black book, with its list of names that included those of a bobby-sox idol, a famous comedian, sev- eral character actors and a veritable army of supporting players. This is understandable, perhaps, when you consider that the notorious madam advertised openly in the Players’ Direc- tory, even listing her sex-loaded tele- phone number—HOllywood 2555—for lonesome Lotharios in the movie busi- ness! ; Not all of Hollywood’s bad boys and girls are obnoxious, however. Some have given: the police a lot of laughs, like Robert Newton, the British character actor, arrested as a drunk, who played scenes from his role as John Silver in Treasure Island to a full drunk tank and had them rolling on the floor. And comedian Allen Jenkins, who made happy headlines for a change when he was arrested for drunk driving, with his pet cat on his lap. “The cat was driving,” Jenkins insisted. “I’m just along for the ride.” Smiley, the cat, went to jail with Jenkins and stood trial before a jury which, after three days of hearing testi- mony, acquitted them both. Other Hollywood drunks are not so funny to the cops—guys like Lawrence Tierney, the movie Dillinger, who has been in and out of jail on drunk raps so frequently in the past seven years that they wish he’d just go somewhere else. Tierney, in fact, has made a career out of being drunk in public. It started off, apparently, when folks expected him to be as tough as John Dillinger, the late public enemy whom Tierney portrayed so well on film. After four or five drunk arrests, Tierney made a personal appearance tour through the East, trying to be a good boy. But he tangled with a house dick in Balti- more and got thrown in the can on an assault beef, later dismissed. Said Tierney: “Guys see me coming and say, ‘Oh, Dillinger, huh?’ and stick their hands in their coat pockets and make believe they got a gun. They go at . ? 2 ping-ping.’ You begin to wonder where their gray matter is, when they start playin’ cops and robbers with you. But awhat the hell—you ignore it. You can’t fight everybody !” Despite that sage observation, Tierney went on his belligerent way, In May, 1947, he and his kid brother got into a scrap over a girl and landed in jail. A Beverly Hills judge sent him off to the county road camp for 90 days. No sooner was he behind bars than Tierney was in trouble again—this time for not getting up when the jailer called him at 6:30 a.m. In true Dillinger style, Tierney was slapped into solitary for a day, without cigarets or candy. On top of that, Tierney was sentenced to another 30 days for violating probation by getting drunk and fighting with his brother. The sentence was suspended, but the judge warned Tierney: “If you don’t lay off liquor, you'll end up like some of these other defendants—back on your heels. , ” For a while, after he graduated from the honor farm, Tierney took the judge at his word. He nonchalantly watched two bartenders perform mayhem on each other at the Mocambo, while he calmly sipped an orange juice. Then, one night, a stranger clipped him as he sat eating in Barney’s Beanery, favorite movietown spot on Santa Monica Boulevard. Tierney swung back that time and floored his assailant. The man sued for $100,000 damages, but later dropped the suit and ended by paying a $25 fine for contempt in not showing up to press charges he himself had brought. Subsequently Tierney was booked as a drunk in Santa Barbara and next day bailed himself out, along with a 70-year- old pal he met in the drunk tank; he paid a $200 fine for brawling at Avalon during a yachting party, and again he was driven to jail in Hollywood by a weary cabby who said that Tierney had insisted on sharing his cockpit with him, and then had passed out. ‘A few drunk arrests later, Tierney was picked up with Jean Wallace, Franchot Tone’s ex-wife, for screaming loudly at THE TOO EARLY BIRD Robert Thompson, 25, insisted that he just wanted to make sure he would be first in line for a haircut, but unbelieving Indian- apolis police booked him on a preliminary charge of robbery. The arresting officers had found him inside a barber shop—shortly be- fore midnight. The fact that a window at the rear of the shop was broken may well have led them to their not unlikely conclusion. avy a steers tee CUone ca canientean esnedenezn dst tenant ona vestoer nts pan uueNEE inated her in a parked car. Both were released. On June 21, 1951, the screen’s tough guy got into a predawn brawl! with bartender John Naylor in Los Angeles, Naylor charged that Tierney kicked him in the face while he was down. Naylor collected $5,000 damages. : In July, 1951, Tierney got 2 job playing stock with a road show of “Streetcar Named Desire,” and happened to be in Santa Fe, New Mexico, when he should have been in court in Los Angeles an- swering a battery complaint. That time the stock-company producer was looking for him too—he forgot to show up for the opening performance. Back on the West Coast, Tierney did five days for contempt in not appearing in court. ‘ When he did go to trial, Tierney drew 180 days on a battery conviction, but had the sentence halved. He said, apologeti- cally: “I realize that society must do something about a man like me. I am not a criminal, not a thief. My actions have harmed only myself... .” On his release, Tierney sought psy- chiatric care, a thing that might have saved a lot of trouble for Hollywood's most unwelcome drunk if he had taken it up earlier. : As it turned out, Tierney was spotted, barefooted, loitering near a Santa Monica church one night shortly thereafter. Somebody called the cops, and when Of- ficer Dan Cook approached Tierney, he ran into the church and knelt before the altar, praying incoherently. Cook strapped Tierney into an ambu- lance and took him to a sanitarium. But within three weeks Tierney was again walking the streets barefooted, outside a downtown Los Angeles saloon, where he had offered to whip anybody in the house, He told arresting officers he’d “heen drunk for three days,” At the police sta- ' b: tion, Tierney gave his occupation as a “bum. One man thought Tierney could be saved from himself, if given a chance. He was Roger Kendall, an independent producer, who wanted an actor of Tierney’s type to play a tough cop, “When he’s away from Hollywood,” said Kendall, “he loses his tension. He becomes a different, relaxed person. After he gets a couple of good roles under his belt, people will forget the Dillinger leg- end, ...” But Hollywood's bad boy went back to jail again for assault and did 74 days be- fore they let him out to play his new role. Things went pretty smoothly for Tierney—for a while. Then, February 11, 1953, he climbed out of a taxicab in Santa Monica and sat down between two men waiting for a bus. He waved a bottle half full 6f vodka and insisted that they join him in a drink. Instead, they called the cops—and Tierney made the bucket on his 14th drunk arrest. 9 “How old are you?” the booking officer asked. f i “One hundred and forty,” said the tipsy actor, “Where do you live?” the officer asked in a tired voice. “I’m just a little pigeon who has no home,” Tierney said sadly, wandering off to his tank cell. Ir Tierney was Hollywood’s most obnoxious drunk, Robert Walker was its most tragic. That boyish, $2,000-a-week bobby-sox idol battled a strange inner emotional torment through most of his life, and finally turned to alcohol for consolation. . Hollywood gossips blamed producer David O. Selznick for creating the biggest emotional storm in Walker's life, when the producer took Walker’s wife, Jen- nifer Jones, under his wing and overnight made her a star in “Song of Bernadette.” For her role, Jennifer won an Oscar, and it turned out that one roof couldn’t cover the mixed genius that Jennifer and Walker possessed. So Walker moved out and Selznick took Jennifer as his wife. Walker again sought happiness in mar- riage with pretty Barbara Ford, daughter of director John Ford, but he was fast losing the battle of the bottle, and so he lost Barbara, too. He was arrested a short time later on a drunk rap with a sexy brunette-who gave her name as Thelma Patricia Byrnes, but who turned out to be Pat Dane, the former Mrs. Tommy Dorsey. Pat paid a $150 fine for drunk driving, and Walker forfeited $50 bail. Walker sought his answer next-at the Menninger Clinic ‘in Topeka, Kansas, but got into a jam there when he smashed the windows in the Topeka police station with his fists. Then he seemed to get bet- ter, and admitted to friends that he felt like he'd “gotten rid of a ton of bricks” and faced a brilliant future. But on August 28, 1951, he suddenly was stricken again with the mysterious psy- chic maelstrom that had plagued him be- fore. He pleaded with friends at his beau- tiful Sunset Boulevard home: “Please— do something, quick!" They summoned a psychiatrist, who saw that Walker’s trou- ble was medical. A physician was called and he was given an injection of sodium amytol, a sedative. It was Walker’s fate that he was a “one-in-10,000" type that responds the wrong way to sodium amytol—it pro- duced a respiratory failure which brought on sudden death, How many others in Hollywood have \

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turned to booze, dope or sex 4 49 eas eas cond Some release? Remember Frances oe oat star of the late '30s meee *h SDoile married to Lief Ericks S happily : Son, anotHer actor? Something happened in that household tc wreck a marriage. Her mother called it maladjustment,” but liquor did it In October, 1942, Frances Wak ticked up 25280 ng eae Paid an installment pended. She also drew a 180-dae hia pended arenond but when she Soultn't keep up the payments aa into Bonney jail. her fine, she was “he jail matron, feari , had Frances Be Neda a oan algae and later she was placed in a sanitari he Her mother, Mrs. Lilian Farmer of Seat. tle, came and took her home. 9 Miss Farmer at length was sent to a nental institution in Washington, and in July, 1944, she was released as cured. But something within her would not let her live in peace, and within three weeks she was arrested in Antioch, California, after hitchhiking 200 miles from Reno. ” as ae palesd of a Hollywood come- bere or Frances Farmer, it never Bowen Charleston Tufts III of the Boston Back Bay Tufts—better known around filmdom as Sonny—made the bucket back in 1950 after a tour of Central Avenue—Los Angeles’ Harlem district. In the wee small hours, Sonny and his press” t, Harry Eldridge, made a bet ‘who could walk the farthest down ee er in ae middle of the street out falling off. They got clear to 32nd Street before the cops broke up their game and jugged them. Sonny posted $20 bond for each and forfeited the bail. The following year Sonny’s estranged wife, Barbara, filed a separate mainte- nance suit, charging him with being a problem drunk who often ran up $2,000 bills in night clubs. That night Sonny hit for Central Avenue again. This time he made the bucket on a drunk charge after an argument with a cook over a $4.55 bill for fried chicken. aes . Said Sonny: “My wife’s a little mad at "Th : Greatest, it seems, are not immune kook the wackiness that infests Holly- wood. Take Gene Krupa, the greatest jazz drummer of them all, who was found guilty in 1943 of contributing to a minor's delinquency in a dope case. d Six years later, Krupa, a thoroughly ad- justed individual, learned that three members of his reorganized hari sear caught in a similar jam in Detroit. ‘ane fred them on the spot, and spoke these true words: A ; . “The conduct of a few 1s unjustly in- juring all musicians pat the entertain- ment world as a whole... -- ; Lou Costello, the lovable, laughable lit- _ tle comedian, tangled booze and gas one - tight and tried to drive down the wrong side of Ventura Boulevard, dodging be- tween the oncoming lights, ae that they were all out of step. but him. He was booked for drunk driving an ‘ined, And the great Bing beat ie ‘wo generations, left hims } 5103400 damage anit last pa eens howerful Mercedes-benz inother car in which three pet had a Njured, Bing testified tha 2 ‘ew Scotches and soda before the 96ci- ‘ent, but highway, patrolment drinking. Nention of anyone having bege ponies ‘he injured persons were a city ae "tank Verdugo, his wife and her the Soltry Gail Russell of the mov EE ee Sh came news last November when, one night, she drove her little convertible up behind a police car at a signal and de- cided to give them a piece of her horn. She blew and she blew and she blew. So officers Edward Sweeney and Bert Dillinger hopped out to see what was YA AE MIA 2: her to walk a straight ne holding her nose, bu i i she fella tone: t this, they said, So, off to the poky went Gail for a lone- some night behind bars. She asked for a Jury trial to tell her story, which was that she wasn’t really plastered at all. Gail, incidentally, figured in the divorce action between John and Esperanza Wayne, and was said by Mrs. Wayne to have harbored John all one night, after which he wandered home completely drunk and broke in through a glass door: On January 18, 1954, Gail pleaded guilty to the charge of drunkenness and was fined $50. Judge Thurlow Taft placed her on probation for two years, ordering her to refrain from drinking intoxicating liquor, to stay out of all places where liquor is sold and to obtain medical treat- ment. In. pleading her case, Attorney Harvey L. Silbert told the court Gail's, behavior was ‘due to “severe emotional strain” as a result of the testimony in the John Wayne divorce trial and of the separation from her husband, screen and TV actor Guy Madison, from whom she is estranged. : Testimony of the Wayne variety is common in Hollywood, and fights fre- quently break out as the purple shade of night softly falls . . . and for fighters, Terry Scott gets the Oscar of the Los Angeles press at tops. This little party girl was roused from her slumber one night a year ago when vice squaders and reporters broke into the West Hollywood apartment she shared with another lovely young thing and found two men friends with them. The officers contended that they were having some marijuana in defiance of the laws of the state, and at this, Terry let fly with a whisky bottle, a piggy bank, pots and pans and other bric-a-brac. One reporter was conked out and a couple of cameras were smashed by Ter- rible Terry, who eventually won her point when she convinced a judge that she didn’t know where those marijuana ciggies, that the officers found in a bureau drawer, had come from, Why do Hollywood people act like that? Your guess is as good as mine—but maybe it’s because of the pressures of living constantly in the spotlight of audi- ence recognition, so that every move, good or bad, is a matter of public con- cern. And now that Hollywood is busy turn- ing out television movies, church groups are vitally concerned lest some of its back-street rowdiness creep into our homes and corrupt that basic unit of American way of life. In January, 1954, Bing Crosby's TV-debut program brought caustic comment from the readers of a religious magazine. The attack centered on a dance performed by Sheree North. Said a ruffled viewer: “The dance was degrading. ... It is time to act and de- stroy the nauseating tactics of those in charge of entertainment in both movies and television.” : : The Breen office and others in a posi- tion to exert censorship have maintained reasonably high standards of morality on film, but when night falls over Holly- wood, look out for sin, sex and sadism. It’s still running wide open. * ~ Lal ay % charac fore * wenlent monthly Amount you want to borrow § _————- oe oe oe ee ee ee oe oe ee eee 25 BIG 8x10" PICTURES ON GLOSSY PAPER f Marlyn Monroe Mari Bleacherd Piper Lourie Aan Blyth doen leslie Crd Cherise Denise Dercel Joonne Gilber! Wande Hendrin Mery Murphy Vere Ellen Evtetita Redrigues Lone Turner Ana Miller Yvonne DeCerlo Jane Russell Rhonde Fleming Jone Powell ALL LATEST POSES HOLLYWOOD STAR P Box 8635 Dept.F-7 Hollywood 46, Calif. ANY PHOTO ENLARGE Size 8 x 10 Inches on Sede redeh peal Paper : cece | hd e part of @ group p 's Peturned with your enlargement. Postage or Gemtho ler and we pay post- os pode age. 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| Tracked a Slippery Killer [Continued from page 18] officer fired into the air over the thicket with his pistol. Three shots, and no an swering sound from the thicket When the brush crackled nearby, and Hanna moved fotward, a .22 slug kicked dust in front of him. It was Strachan’s last warning. Hanna returned the fire, shooting only at the sound in the thicket until his pistol was empty. As he ran forward, trying to reload, the .22 cracked again. And this time the sound of a hollow-point slug plowing into flesh floated across the dark pool of water from whence it came. When his fellow officers found him, Hanna still held a fresh cartridge with lifeless fingers, and his gun lay beside him, its cylinder open. The hollow-point slug had exploded in- side, but the hole it had left going in was a neat round spot on the blue uni- form . .. squarely over the heart. No one but Jack Strachan shot like that in the brush. From the elevation of the house 200 yards away, Douglas Smith caught a brief glimpse of a woods-green jacket and the glimmer of sun against metal. The killer was now moving leisurely over the crown of the hill .. . in the direction of Smith’s own home, where four little children hud- dled in fear. Four children whom Jack Strachan had fathered and reared—and whom now he had sworn to kill. Rather than attempt to track the woodsman in the dense thickets, Patrol- man Hinsley radioed State Patrol head- quarters for aid. The hunt was no longer for a man with family trouble. It was for Jack Strachan, killer of one of the most popular officers who ever wore a badge in east Texas . for an insane man with a deadly rifle who had already shown that he would kill any human being who stood in the way of his crusade of death... . The police radio above my _ desk crackled. The words came out hurried yet clear from the announcer: “All patrol units directed to Bassett, B-A-S- S-E-T-T, near Maud, Texas. Near Maud, Texas. Killer at large in woods. Patrol- man W. O. Hanna killed. Woman criti- cally shot. Hurry. Rendezvous at Johnson’s Store. At Johnson’s Store. All units attention, Repeat.” Ten minutes later, with my camera and a penciled short-cut route to Bassett marked out on a map, I was jumping bumps and puddles in the rough asphalt road which cuts across 70 miles of east Texas backwoods to a little community I'd never before heard of. I wasn’t sure where it was, but I had taken my pickup truck rather than the faster press car, because the roads almost certainly would be bad. Rain was be- ginning to fall. And in that country, most roads away from the highway are dirt. The pickup bounced and skidded on the slick asphalt, and the speedometer bounced with it, from 70 to 80 m.p.h. From what little I knew, I surmised that this would have to be a fast operation. Every patrol unit in east Texas would be there by the time I was. But in the truck, I could take the short cuts. When I turned into the last stretch of highway between Maud and Bassett, ONE FALSE MOVE Spectators keep a wary distance as trafic officer H. L. Holmes holds a pistol on burglary suspects Otis Cagle and Berley Headley, kneeling on the sidewalk in down- town Los Angeles. Holmes captured the pair when they returned to their car parked at the curb. Policeman Holmes first blocked a possible getaway by directing a bus driver to pull his vehicle up in front of the auto. The suspects, who have denied the crime, were booked at Los Angeles city jail. 4 A a patrol car passed, Sucu scrcaunng [| was getting close to the scene of action, A few minutes later I saw the first patrol unit, parked beside the road. | skidded to a stop and ran over to the car. The lone officer inside had radio con- tact with the search headquarters at Johnson's Store—the only place nearby with a telephone. The patrolman was getting ready to set up a roadblock. He said all he knew was that the killer was still at large; searching parties were al- ready combing the thickets near where he was last seen. Bloodhounds were com- ing from some place, he added, but they hadn’t arrived yet. I drove more slowly down the highway, and began to see the unmistakable signs of nearness to a disaster. On both sides of the road, in the little frame houses where mostly railroad people lived, whole families were gathered, children huddled close to their parents. Most of the men carried guns. These people were scared, deathly afraid of Jack Strachan. They knew what he could do with a rifle, and they feared, as much as anything, the unearthly silence by which they all knew him. I pulled in at a little store beside the road, parked out of the way, and edged into a tight knot of men gathered around a mud-spattered jeep. The man in it had just come from one of the searching parties. Bearded and tired, he was shaking his head. “We ain’t seen a sign of him,” he was saying. “Lookin’ fer that man in the woods is like lookin’ fer a buck deer when he knows you’re a-comin’. You ain’t gonna see him till he wants you to.” I pressed in closer and began casually asking questions about Strachan: what they knew about him, where he might try to go now. “Son,” one of the men told me, “No- body knows much about Jack Strachan. He was a strange man. He minded his own business and asked no favor from nobody. And he’s hard of hearing. “I guess he figures this here is family trouble and nobody else’s business. But I don’t know. He must be plumb out of his head now. I never thought he'd do nothin’ like this.” a Another man. shook his head. “I always knew he was plenty mean, because he was so quiet,” he said. “You don’t want to fool with nobody that quiet. They'll kill you.” _ As he talked, I watched another man in the group. He didn’t like that kind of talk, I could tell, but he didn’t say any- thing. He moved off and I followed him. Did you know Jack very well?” I asked as unassumingly as possible, fum- bling for a match, “Was he a friend of yours?” The man studied me closely. He handed me a box of dirty matches out of his Jacket pocket and then answered as cagily as I had asked. “Sure, I know him.” “Ts he a bad man?” I asked. “Nope, he ain’t no bad man,” he replied, as if I were arguing with him. “Never has been. He’s just a strange man, and nobody around here ever understood him. I went huntin’ with him some.” I changed the subject to hunting: how hard it was to hit a cat squirrel in these east Texas thickets, especially with a rifle. Jack a very good shot?” I asked. _ He studied me again. “The best shot in this county, son. He can hit a cat squirrel running in a sapling top. And ’ : : ey ‘an t never seen him MISS OMe sittin Still. -

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In an offhand manner, I] asked where Strachan might go now, *"] reckon,” he said, “that Jack’ll go right about where he said he'd go, He generally did what he said he was i to do. He is about awful st Peers made up his miceare That's all he would say, sh Yi Back to the truck, I had a heater was beginning to piec be had said, and what Someta hes aid when T went inside to bu hie cgarets, added up to one thin eee 1 took off pretty fast, because unless | was all wrong, this was going to be qick. Jack Strachan, [ figured, wasn't irying to get away. It didn’t Rear setae what Thad learned about him. And Py te ¢ was cut off, he would finish his job of killing. Of that I was as sure as that the sun would set somewhere back over ete of brush and swamp water j he was no i i ghost in the ee +0 Bagh Ske BR oh my sind made before I got to lg te ore, and when I stopped here to get a last report from the high- vay patrol, the first person I met was a patrolman TI used to know in Athens, Texas. It had been several years—but bet Ray recognized me as soon as I ; up. He anda group of other patrolmen vere listening to the wide-eyed story eing related by a railroad hand. And rom the first words and from his looks, did ke the man or the story. Maybe yecause it didn’t fit mine! center of attraction for the first e in his life, the unkempt section hand ras emphasizing every word with a sig- ificant look at the patrolmen. Making he most of it, I figured. His story was that he had seen a man ith a gun hurrying across the railroad racks, miles in the other direction from tassett; also, that the local train which ad passed through an hour before, had topped for a moment before continuing oward Texarkana. “I mighty near know he got on that rain,” he was saying. “Jack has kinfolks shat work for the railroad, and he used ohimself before he got sick. I near about ow he’s on that train, and he'll likely ump off somewhere ‘tween here and here and get plumb out of the country. The information was being taken down, vord for word, and a call was being pre- ared for the freight yards in Texarkana. itlooked as if Strachan had surely eluded he tightening circle of searching parties. But I still didn’t believe it. It just didn t it the kind of man he was supposed to de i d my arm and asked if I th payer on a short patrol Sern he road. I grabbed my camera and pile * with him and Patrolman Henry Riza. ‘T'll go if you'll patrol the way were itaded,” I kidded pip. noon 30 way, and 1’ rou why on : We ae off, and I began to bel are that I had learned about Strac bale “sured them, from all I had foun Bite hat there was nothing oy the story tilroad hand had just given. When I explained about the en be ew Strachan so well, and nics ae hem that Strachan’s oath was to a she ‘st of the family, Jim nodded agreer a ‘lf he'd been trying to get ae or “ould have already left the come ry * killed his wife,” he ; q The next logical place for Strachan would be the home of his io hag & Douglas Smith, It wat mith om ‘tachan particularly hated = Ay: chil. *use he had helped Jose es MS acad tn after she and Jack had sep And in those few minutes at the store, I had learned that it was Douglas Smith who had gone to the school at Simms and had picked up Strachan’s four younger children as soon as he had learned that Josie had been shot. He knew that Jack would try to kill them, too, as he had threatened, and had taken them to his home for protection. But cool, calcujating Jack Strachan would know that too. He would know that the logical place to find his children, and to kill them, would be at Douglas Smith’s house. The house was a few hundred yards from the highway, and I had already noticed that a brush-grown thicket ex- tended from the woods to within 500 yards of Smith’s front door. Strachan could go to the thicket’s edge in day- light, lie in the shelter of the woods until dark, then cross the opening to get to the house. That’s what a hunter would do. And Jack Strachan was the master hunter. As Jim cruised along slowly, I pointed out, in the distance, the Smith house, neat and white and facing the thicket. It wasn’t 60 seconds later that the call came through on our car radio. The voice from the receiver was tense and brittle, and I knew what the message was before the words were half out. “Car 361, Car 361, your man sighted 300 yards behind Tidwell's Store. Tid- well’s Store. Hurry!” We looked up, and not 50 yards in front of us was the little store building and the sign: Tidwell’s Store. By that time a man was running out in the road, point- ing down a little dirt road that joined the highway at the store. Ray gunned the car so fast that the speed threw me across the back seat. As we skidded into the dirt road, I was trying to pull the sawed-off shotgun out of the case, and was looking off toward the thicket where, I had figured, Jack Strachan would eventually try to go. In that second something moved, ma- terialized into a man, and dropped behind a tree. I grabbed Jim’s shoulder and hollered that I could see Strachan. We skidded to a stop in front of a little shack. A man in a dark jacket came running out in the yard, and I saw Patrolman Lacy Thomas- son from Tyler running to meet him from another patrol car parked in front of ours. The man was pointing toward the thicket, and his wife was running up and down in the yard, screaming and crying and slapping her legs in terror. “There he goes!” Jim yelled in my ear, “Give me that shotgun and stay out of the way!” I had the camera and a pocketful of flash bulbs, and I started running behind them. In front of us, Lacy Thomasson was already crouching and darting from tree to tree, trying to get around the edge of the woods to head Strachan off. I caught a glimpse of the killer, heading into the thicket a hundred yards away in the scattered pines, moving remarka- bly fast for his measured stride. Now, I thought to myself. Now, it is different. You are in the open, Jack Strachan. The hunter has become the hunted! It kept running through my mind, and ] remember thinking it would make a good headline. From then on it all happened so fast that it was a blur of running, crawling, ducking from tree to tree, and closing in. 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to stop, and then I saw him, still yards away from the thicket, crossing a fence. Esten Ray stepped out from behind a tree, and Strachan whirled from the hip with his rifle. There was the simultaneous crack of gunfire, and I saw Ray lurch from the recoil. At first I thought Ray had been hit, but in that split second a slug whined by overhead, high and to the right. The sharpshooter had missed! And as he ducked behind another pine, I could see a break in Strachan’s gait. Ray had beat him to the shot! “He’s hit,” Ray’s voice boomed out in the sudden silence, and Thomasson began yelling for Strachan again. “Come out with your hands up,” he hollered. Somebody shouted that Strachan was hard of hearing, and to yell louder. They all began shouting. And suddenly the .22 barked again, and was answered by a reverberating volley from the 30.30s, and then a lone shotgun blast roared across the bottom land. Bark flew from a tall pine, and there was an- other glimpse of the killer as he ducked into the concealment of the thicket. It was a little hillock, surrounded by water and grown solid in scrub trees. He must have gone in on his hands and knees. Unexpectedly it was silent again, and I realized that I was panting out loud from the running, and that my camera cord had been yanked loose by a briar. My fingers trembled putting it back, and I crouched lower against the little pine tree. We were all within range of that deadly .22 now, less than 50 yards. And he was hidden in that thicket, elevated on a little knoll above us where he could shoot in any direction. Somebody started hollering again for him to come out, but there was no sound from the thicket. It was the same way he had done with Hanna. I heard somebody yell, “Let’s cut him off from the railroad.” And then, as in a dream, I watched five patrolmen move out into the open, step by step, rifles at their shoulders, walking into the sights of a man who could shoot the heads off matches in Bassett Creek. A man who shot running squirrels in the head. I wondered if they knew that. I wanted to yell, to tell them. And then I was moving out too. Thomasson was moving into the thicket, slowly circling to the right. Esten was walking straight in. Patrolman G. O. Cooper was coming up on Thomas- son’s right. Seconds ticked by, no sound from the thicket. A flurry of movement sent Thomasson ducking into the grass, and there was a flashing glimpse of Strachan’s rifle level- ing out of the scrub trees. In that split second I would not have given 50 cents for the life of Patrolman Lacy Thomas- son. _ But there was no shot. For an agoniz- ing moment Lacy stood there, crouched. And then he yelled out to the others, “I can see him—cover me!” Somebody from ‘the other side yelled for him not to shoot. They were in the line of fire. Thomasson waited, moving slowly to the right. There was another quick movement in the thicket, and this time Thomasson’s 30.30 roared, blending into a volley from the other guns. But it was toward another Part of the thicket, Strachan had moved, crawling in that heavy cover to get an- other shot, “Pour the fire in there,” somebody yelled. “Keep him down!” With slugs whining from three direc- a2 ' tions, Esten Ray, G. O. Cooper, Jim Ray and Lacy Thomasson moved in closer, shooting at every step. These boys are war veterans. They were using their superior firepower, army style, against the killer’s vantage position. He couldn't rise to shoot back in that hail of lead. There was the sickening “whop” of lead smack- ing into flesh as somebody connected blind, in the thicket. Then another “whop.” The boys shooting couldn’t hear it, but I could. I knew they had guessed right in the brush. . And then, sloshing water and ripping through the briars, we were suddenly upon him... lying there in a grotesque heap, starring up with lifeless eyes at the sky. That was all for Jack Strachan. The deadly little rifle lay beside him, and a half-pint bottle of cheap liquor, almost gone, had slipped out of the pocket of the tattered army field jacket. The finger that had carefully squeezed the trigger on two victims a few hours before was a shattered mess of bone and flesh hanging from what had been a hand. Both legs were broken, there was a pool of blood at his hip. The heavy slugs had crimped clothing into the gaping holes in his chest. That was about it. We stood around looking at him for a minute, and then I suddenly went weak and shaky all over. We were wet and tense, and now I was scared. I guess we all were. Because we could see, then, what had saved at least one, maybe more, of us. It was the rifle that Strachan had loved so much. A jammed cartridge was lodged sidewise in the action, the fired shell still in the barrel, So now we knew why there was that split second in which the killer failed to fire point-blank into the face of Lacy Thomasson. He couldn’t. / We just stood there and looked at each other, and about that time the rush of newsmen, sightseers, peace officers, and so forth, came milling across the field and into the thicket. I began to feel a little bit annoyed. For the 15 minutes before Jack Strac- han died, while he was still holding his little .22, you couldn’t see much of any- body but a few highway patrolmen moving in on a killer. : And for the next 10 minutes, after there was no more shooting and the flash of my camera could be seen... here they came. People all over the place. What impressed me greatly was that while most of the newsmen were getting their stories and much of the big talk was going on, the boys who had stopped Jack Strachan were already back at the patrol car waiting for me. They didn't want to talk much about it —probably because they were there. The thing that bothers me most is that many of the stories~ published were written by guys who hadn’t seen a thing; who hadn't, for the most part, even heard a shot. All I know is that this story is the way it is, because I saw it that way with my own eyes. And it happened so fast, I wouldn’t swear to any of it, except that I got wet and scared and tore my breeches on a fence. I won’t say I know what was going on in the mind of Jack Strachan before they closed in on him that last time. But I do know he showed up and was killed in the same thicket I had said he would try to reach. And I'll always believe he would have lain there, if he hadn't been seen, until darkness came and then he would have finished the job he had started. * morning, Jack Strachan finally lost all : been his life. Bie How many of those litue cnilaren he would have killed, no one will ever knuw, But in the dark, a woodsman like Jack Strachan would almost certainly have made those 500 yards to the house. Some say Jack Strachan was a badman, an outlaw. Others say he was shot down in cold blood by a mob instead of a posse. I don’t believe either story, because I saw It. I went back to the little community, after the excitement was over, to find out all I could about Jack Strachan. I learned that Josie Strachan had died in the hos- pital at Texarkana on February 5, 1954. I talked with the storekeeper with whom Jack Strachan traded, and with the boys who had hunted with him. Even with the relatives he had sworn to,kill. And I don’t think he was an outlaw or a maniac. I think he was a sick man who had always been quiet and who had never been understood. [ think that when he left the tuberculosis hospital in Tyler and came home, he was an unwanted old man whose loneliness: crystalized into an in- sane hatred for the entire family. I think that, on that fatal Monday control over his consuming hatred... but he suffered no unsteadiness in the marks- manship and woods cunning which had — SW oft aa He was no raving maniac in the woods, _ because I saw him there. He was as co 1 and deliberate—as the hunted—as he had been the rest of his life as the hunter. There were 22 different bullet wound in him when we found him lying in that thicket, and there has been some idl talk that his “mutilation” will be avengec $d I hope nothing like that is ever saic again. Nobody mutilated Jack Strachan — intentionally. Pama 2 ae I saw that ‘too. The officers moved in on him, in that last volley pouring in all the lead they could throw. Because evel then, they didn’t know if he was down in that impenetrable thicket ... or if he was crawling again. They didn’t know if they were hitting or not—shooting blind into 7 a thicket—but they were pouring all the © fire they had to keep him at the spot where he had last disappeared. ties We found out later that, among the officers who had braved Strachan’s — marksmanship, there were four crack. shots with a rifle, and one with a 12- gauge shotgun. These were the patrolmen a who were guessing right when they shot — into that thicket. e.g aes There was Patrolman G. O. Cooper of — Carthage, who dusted the killer with buckshot as he dodged from one thicket to the next. Jim Ray and Henry Riza of © Athens, and R. L, Dorough of Carthage, — moving in with the rest of us on that last — volley. Esten Ray and Lacy Thomasson of Tyler, who made that first contact and- pinned their man down, exposing them- selves time and again so that the rest could caver them for the last rush up that bloody little knoll. z me Maybe there were some others in on 4 that last one, too. I don’t know. The brush was so thick you couldn’t see far, and 1 know there were some others coming up from the other side, because I could hear them hollering to Strachan. One of the © first guys I saw after the shooting stopped was a policeman from Texarkana. | think, and I know he must have been right there too. All I saw, in the thick of that slough brush, was a ring of tight-lipped highway boys walking straight into a man with death in his eyes, and killing him, as It isn't a very pretty story, but it is the truth,

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Restless Romeo {¢ ‘ontinued from page 3] (antanzo, 39, at Las V December 5, 1952. Th then started the new of her feet, dark-eyed Viyi i i 4, without bothering to Chane: jocales: he wed Vivian at Las Vegas rho Six months was all the trucker seemed to teable to restrain himself from what was now becoming a habit. On June 18, 1953 he appeared before a Los Angeles min- ster and again said, “I do”; thus makin Lucille Norvell, 35, Bride No. 51 . Apparently all the women trusted the persuasive gent when he told them his work kept him away from the fireside so irequently, Two of the women were 50 much under the spell of the truck driver that, when he*found time to park his trailer outside their “honeymoon cot- tages,” they gave him a total of $4,000 so that he could keep mind and body together. The\bubble burst for Griffin when, in the process of nei : hborly gossip, four of the five Mrs. Grifine a to kouipare notes and husbands! Hell hath no fury like a woman two-timed. Banded together, the ‘our vivacious Mrs. Griffins went to the Nee egas, Nevada, on ¢ restless Romeo year by sweeping 5 Bludgeoned Playgirl [Continued from page 23) them later, and eventually they had set- tled in Norfolk, the two families main- taining a close relationship. Both men were now Civilians. Mrs. Addington said that her husband, Joseph, was employed as a boilermaker at the Norfolk Naval Shipyards in Ports- ° mouth, across the Elizabeth River. Leslie Dyris. was a bartender, and Patricia worked in the same night club as a wait- Tess. . icia’ tact Patricia’s work brought her in con with many men, Mrs. Addington told the detectives, and this disturbed the woman's husband greatly. He had tried, panies success, to get Pat to quit the night ife and devote herself entirely to their seven- -old son. j: emer words,” interrupted Orne ‘Pat and her husband weren't actually madly in love with each other, wére they?” \ ‘l’'m sorry to say ¢t vasn’t as happy as mine, ton replied. ; i , Tell us about last night, the detective thief suggested, r.. “Well” Patricia came over to visit me inthe afternoon. We spent iy eer ing about nothing in particular. ~ hat her marriage ” Mrs. Adding- about five. However, an hour later she rear why visibly disturbed and she had . i r. Pat explained ‘bottle of liquor with ipl Bee with her that she had had another lsband over her attentions to other men ad over her drinking. authorities, who decended like an irate cupid on the “love nest” of Wife No. 2, etty Steigman Griffin. There they plucked the unhappy lover from the com- forts of his pipe and slippers, and clamped him into jail. As they took the restless Romeo away, Betty cried: “I love him, We want to get remarried when all this is straightened out.” Explained Griffin: “I guess I just hada lot of time on my hands.” However, it is the opinion of Dr. Eric Driekurs, chief sychologist of the County Probation Department, that Griffin wasn't really interested in a wife— subconsciously he was seeking a mother! In his own mind—so runs the psychi- atric reasoning—Griffin, the man who couldn’t stay in the arms of one woman for long, resented his own mother and indulged in quintuple-wedlock because he was seeking “a mother kinder than his own,” Judge Schweitzer shook his head sadly and accepted Griffin’s plea of guilty to the charge of bigamy. He placed the trucker on probation for five years, with the condition that he serve the first year in county jail. In addition, he must make restitution of the $4,000 he took from his two trusting brides. It should be interesting to learn how Griffin got along with five mothers- in-law! Shortly afterward, the blonde housewife continued, her husband, Joe Addington, arrived home from work. The couple in- vited Patricia to stay for supper, which she did. During the meal, Joe Addington tried to reason with Pat, and told her that she was foolish for not listening to her husband’s advice. Throughout the eve- ning, the brunette Australian war bride took quick nips from her liquor bottle. At around 9 o'clock, the Addingtons and their guest had seated themselves around the television to see a movie. The show ‘was eutitled The Long Voyage Home, and it depressed Patricia. She ex- pressed a longing for her family in Australia and she had voiced a morbid belief that she would never see them again. ie The evening passed uneventfully, Mrs. Addington declared, except that shortly “before the TV movie began, Leslie Davis dropped by with his son. He asked Patricia if she would like to return home with them. In a belligerent tone of voice his wife said no; she wanted to stay until after the show. Crestfallen, Davis de- parted, taking his child with him. At around 10:30 the movie ended. Patricia was lying on the sofa, her eyes still glowing from the effect of the movie that had made her so homesick. Joe Addington was fast asleep ina red leather rocker nearby. “I asked Pat what she wanted to do, since I, too, was sleepy and wanted to go to bed,” the blonde house- wife related. “Pat told me she would rest a while and see what else was on the TV. She expected to leave shortly after that. I then asked how she planned to get home. “Pat said she would-either walk, if it had stopped raining, or would catch a cab. She said she had about $20 in her purse. I suggested that she stay the night, since she had often done so; but Pat was un- decided. Anyway, I bade her good pei and went to my room. That's the oe saw of Pat,” Mrs. Addington finished de- j ly. : eur thanking the woman for — io formation, Gornto and Towe headed for the Davis home. BE A DETECTIVE PAYS OFF BiG! [ee THRILLING WORK! t URGENT DBMAND for trained Detectives. Sclen- course on fiction! Learn | aa) n your 4) International Detective Training Lesson. Samp “4 time... . ple TODAY. School 1701 Monroe St., NE. Dept. FM47, Washington 18, D.C. TM Reg US Pos, A strong, form-fitting washable sup ing adjustable, Snaps up In front. RUPTURE-EASER Fitting Required rt. Back lac- djustable leg strap. Soft, flat groin pad. No steel or leather bands, Unexcelled for comfort. Also used operation purports For men, women ond children. give Meil orders measure o cieeerprenmmalene, More eabt by lott double, We y Postage 811 Wyandotte, Ban. SS nase . on dell * SEND FOR FREE SAMPLE ive for C. WAC) ssomuieatious executive 417 Se. 757H, vare charm and ine 14-1 Relled gold jue white diamond imitation. Wear my advice. 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The tall, husky, wavy-haired ex-sailor was surprised to see the officers. He readily told of last seeing his wife at the Addington apartment the previous eve- ning. When he asked what it was all about, Gornto told him that his wife had been murdered, The shock was obvious. Davis broke down and sobbed. When he regained his composure, he confirmed everything Mrs, Addington had told the officers up until his departure. “After that,” Davis said, “I went down on Main Street to see a fellow about a job. He wasn’t there, however, so I stopped in a confectionery store and bought some comic books for my boy. We read them until we fell asleep,” Davis continued. The young man candidly admitted that he and his wife had been at odds. “It was nothing serious, though. Just domestic spats.” “Would you know of anyone who might have murdered your wife?” Gornto in- quired. “You know, she was badly beaten by someone who must have hated her bitterly.” “No, I don’t. Pat liked to have fun and she enjoyed drinking, but she was a good woman. I loved her dearly.” “We'll have to take you down to head- quarters for a signed statement. You have no objections, have you?” While the detectives were satisfied that Davis’ story was solid, they wanted to check it before they could exonerate him completely. “Let's have a talk with Joe Addington,” suggested Captain Gornto to his homicide chief. “He might have talked with Pa- tricia Davis after his wife did.” Through the tunnel under the Eliza- beth River to Portsmouth drove the two sleuths. At the naval shipyard, Addington was quickly located. He was a tall, seri- ous-mannered man of about 32. He apologized for his soiled dungarees and shirt, stating that he had been busy with some steel plating when the officers sum- moned him, Appraised of the. detectives’ mission, Addington exclaimed in a shocked voice, “My God,” he exclaimed. “Pat dead? I can't believe it!” Gornto suggested that he accompany them to headquarters and sit in with his friend, Leslie Davis. Having the two men together, reasoned the sleuth, might pro- duce some clue which would lead to the killer. “I awoke around midnight,” Addington began, when he was interrogated, “to find Patricia preparing to leave. I asked her if she would be all right, and she assured me she would.” The boilermaker explained that Pat had been a bit’ tipsy, but that she had seemed to know exactly what she. was doing. “I walked with her to the front porch,” Addington continued, “and watched her as she walked down toward the corner, As she neared the Presbyterian Church there, I saw two sailors come out of the shadows and call to her. Pat stopped and talked to them. I figured she knew them, so I went back inside and then to bed.” The last he had seen of the fun-loving brunette, she was strolling south on Colonial Avenue with the two men. They were laughing and chatting, he said. Obtaining a description of the sailors; Gornto relayed the information to the Shore Patrol, and the dragnet on East Main Street began. As Addington was about to leave, Cap- tain Gornto noticed that his hand had three Band-Aids on it. The boilermaker lightly explained that he had injured his hand the previous day when a steel tube dragged across it on the job. “Say, Cap- tain !"—he broke off suddenly— “I guess I know what you're thinking. But you can check with the boys at the yard; they'll vouch for the truth of it, I’m sure.” There was no reason to suspect the man. His background was good, he had been a chief in the Navy and had been discharged honorably. The next step in the investigation was to look into Patricia Davis’ love for the night life. Gornto and his men learned that the slain girl was something of a soiled butterfy; that she came of an ex- cellent family in Australia, but upon reaching America and Norfolk, she had become entranced with the bright lights and the night-club, gambling whirl of the huge port area. She had once been ar- rested for drunkenness, but had been re- leased. She had known several men, but the degree of intimacy with them was undetermined. A few of them were ques- tioned—but the results proved engative. With the case at a standstill, Captain Gornto called a meeting of his men to analyze all of the information they had gathered thus far. It was Homicide Chief Towe who suddenly slapped his fist on the desk. “Say,” he exclaimed, “it seems to me that those sailors whom Addington mentioned certainly came along at a con- venient time! I think we should have an- other chat with that fellow.” Captain Gornto agreed, and Addington was brought back to headquarters to re- tell his story of the events on that fatal evening. In a parallel move Detective Sergeant Towe summoned Sergeant L. L. Jones and Detective Jack Morse, both alert, veteran sleuths of the homicide squad. “While we're talking to Addington in- side, I want you to go out to his apart- ment and give it a going-over.” The detectives were greeted by the lovely blonde Mrs. Addington. She proved most co-operative. While Jones talked with her, his young assistant was moving about the apartment, his keen eyes taking in every detail. Then he saw something that made his pulse quicken. At the corner of the door, Morse saw what looked like a bloody handprint which someone had tried to wipe off. “Look here, Sergeant !” he called. The two officers examined the mark thoroughly, and -were convinced that Morse’s discovery was important. Now keenly eager for other clues, the detectives made a complete search of the living room. Their efforts were rewarded. They found blood flecks on some flowered drapes behind the sofa on which Patricia had been resting the night she was watch- ing TV, and then they came across some blood spots on the wall behind the sofa. Doreen Addington was shocked beyond words. But when the officers sticceeded in calming her down, she suddenly exclaimed that a pillow which she ordinarily kept on the sofa was missing, and that the sofa cover seemed to have been washed—yet she hadn’t done it herself. The pillow was located under the sofa, but its cover was missing. When this information was telephoned to headquarters, Captain Gornto and Sergeant Towe lost no time in arriving at the Addington apartment. Along with them they brought laboratory experts, who definitely established that the stains were blood. | In further pursuit of. clues, Detective Morse climbed the stairs to the apart- ment above the Addingtons’. In answer to his questions, the tenants recalled that they had heard some strange sounds com- ing from their downstairs neighbors’ apartment and from the furnace m the basement, the previous evening, The furnace was examined; it proved to be a coal-stoked affair capable of in- tense heat. Sifting the ashes, Morse could find nothing incriminating. Back at headquarters, the detectives confronted Addington with the evidence they had gathered. “I’m innocent,” he cried. “I don’t know a thing about the blood in my apartment. I didn’t kill Pat. I’m sure it was those two sailors I last saw her with.” But the weight of evidence was too great against him. At a quarter of ten that night, Addington broke down. “Whenever I drink, women become ter- ribly appealing to me,” he confessed. He went on to say that when his wife went to bed, he awoke from his nap and had several drinks with Patricia. “She was lying there on the sofa, and I wanted her. I made advances, and she,seemed not to mind me kissing her. Then I tried to have her sexually, and’ she began fighting like a wildcat. She had an awful temper, any- way. She began scratching me, and I lost my head. There was a blackjack in a cabinet, and I got it.” Addington described how he had struck the girl several times. She had fallen back, breathing noisily. He had removed his tie and tightened it around her throat, hold- ing it for “five minutes.” Convinced that she was then dead, the boilermaker had removed the woman’s money—$19.50— from her purse, in addition to all identify- ing papers. He had somehow missed-the prescription blank. During the struggle, the pearl choker necklace had been torn from her neck. Addington had placed it in the purse. Then, lifting the body from the sofa, he had carried it to the alleyway and dropped it to the ground. His wife, sound sleeper that she was, had not heard any noise whatsoever. After checking to make certain that he hadn’t awakened Doreen, Addington returned to the living room, removed the bloodstained sofa cover and took it into the kitchen, where he placed it in the — washing machine and washed it. The pil- low slip was too deeply blood soaked, He took it, together with his tie, the black- — jack and the papers from Patricia Davis’ purse, to the furnace and burned it. Back in his kitchen again, he hung the washed sofa cover over the gas stove to dry, straightened up the living room, and then went to bed. In the morning he arose early, leaving his wife still asleep. He — went directly to work, knowing that he could get coffee and breakfast at the base, : i Addington concluded his confession with an ironic statement. He blamed his downfall on the fact that he was too poor to own a car. If he had had an automobile, he said, he could have carried the woman’s body to the night club where she worked, and have dumped it outside. Thus, no one would have suspected him. “But I’m sorry, I really am. I never did anything like this before, never dreamed I could,” he said. Doreen Addington, advised of her hus- band’s confession, fell unconscious with shock. The detectives are positive she knew nothing of the crime, and they have incontrovertible evidence that the woman habitually slept like the\proverbial log. The next day, Addington re-enacted his crime. Held without bond, the accused was, on February 2, 1954, brought before a Norfolk city special grand jury and in- dicted on two counts of murder and rob- bery. Commonwealth's Attorney H. Lawrence Bullock has expressed the in- tention to bring Addington to trial at an carly date. ; Se eR r rs | : a SS ao

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Rape Terror Ride [Continued from page 8] ~ cities Vaughan pulled over to the side of By the road and parked. Mrs. Burgess was got sure of the exact locality because of > she da K °S i j he = ness. Although the Vaughans _ slept, their prisoner said she dared not try _ to escape, tor fear the sound of the car door opening would wake them and > Vaughan would beat her again. Spent with exhaustion, anguish and fear, Mrs. ¥ Puree ara fell into fitful slumber. , their jour RSABe the kidnapers resumed their Journey: east to Las Cruces, south Bom the Rio Grande, still on U. S. 80 to Fed oom Honi® difterent countrys deri —— ot ams on the river, the valley coms with vegetation, while barren, rocky mountains loom in the background The three reached El Paso, a city of aid 165,000, in the early-morning traffic rush. Tired and shungry, and beset by motor trouble, Vaughan pulled into a service station less than two blocks from _ police headquarters. “Filler up,” he told the attendant, Cecil Ming. Then, while the two women went _ to the rest room, he calmly walked to a _ nearby store and got food for all three. _ It was here that he bought the hot-drink _ cups On whose wrapper Mrs. Burgess ‘eScape note. » a deputy sheriff working extra the filling station during off-duty furs, suspected nothing during the 30 or minutes the three were at the station. He directed several minor repairs for -WVaughan’s car, and recalled later that Mrs. Burgess was standing by the grease _ rack, watching the mechanics work, with no one near her for several minutes. Mrs. Burgess explained later that icy fear kept her from passing word of her plight at that time. The party left El Paso about 10 a.m. Monday, continuing on U. S. 80 down the Rio Grande Valley past Fort Stockton and, still on U. S. 80, through the rugged mountainous country to Van Horn. Somewhere east of Van Horn, Mrs. Burgess said, she discovered a ball-point pen hidden, or lost, in a cranny 1n the back seat. With quick, nervous hands she scrawled her plea for help on the coarse paper label and stuffed it, without detec- tion, into her shoe. ~ Through their conversation, Mrs. Bur- yess learned that the Vaughans were short of cash. She did not know whether or not they had robbed her slain husband; she did know, however, that he had had only about $20 when the Vaughans picked ‘em up. Desperate from suspense and the agony a her imprisonment, she formulated a flan ta try to escape. She suggested to aughan that if they would permit her to “op at a Western Union office in Odessa, Texas, she would wire home for money. Vaughan thought over the proposition and decided it would be all right. | P ut Mrs. Burgess’ hope of enlisting aid hlummeted quickly—when Vaughan said ‘¢ would accompany her to the telegraph ofice! Unable to back out now, the cap- Ye sent a telegram: Vat ., Mom, Please send me $25. Billy. Billy” was a nickname sometimes used *y her husband. . _ Yaughan's catlike watchfulness during he interlude in the telegraph office pre- "tnted the sorrow-torn woman from slip- ng her life-saving note to anyone, and € trio continued eastward, itl _ Fearful and depressed, the note still in “shoe, Mrs. Burgess had little expecta: tion left of contacting help. Only 20 miles farther east, though, her chance came, and she took it. A strong, gusty wind had been whip- ping through the town of Midland that Monday, scattering clouds of the semi- desert sand before it. Vaughan and his wife got out of the car to stretch, while service station attendant Jerry Ford gassed up the car, Mrs. Vaughan fished in her purse and produced a bill, which she handed to her husband. A sudden gust of prairie wind snatched the bill from their hands and, without thought of their prisoner, they gave chase. Mrs. Burgess took advantage of the mo- ment and slipped the note to Ford. With her story completed, police ques- tioned Mrs. Burgess carefully on all points. They asked her what kinds of country she had come through since her husbatid’s death; where the body was in relation to Lordsburg or Deming. Biggest question, though, was the motive that Vaughan could have had for the murder. Surely he must have known that Bur- gess had little, if any, money. A man who admitted he was unemployed and who hadn't even enough money to send his wife across the nation on a bus while he hitchhiked was not a logical robber’s vic- tim. More and more, through the question- ing, it appeared that Vaughan’s sole mo- tive for killing Burgess was to have his own way with Mrs. Burgess. One Mid- land officer told reporters that “it looks like a kind of maniacal sex spree.” Still, as Midland Police Chief Harold Wallace, Detective Captain Billy Patter- son and Midland County Sheriff Ed Dar- nell mulled the case over, there was an angle which threw doubt on the murder- for-sex possibility. The officers found it hard to believe that Vaughan committed such an offense in the presence of his own wife, heavy with child. Also, it seemed to investigating officers very illogical that Vaughan would have found it necessary to kill Burgess, if rape were his motive. He might have lured him from the car and driven off without him, they reasoned. Vaughan himself remained quiet and untalkative. It was his~ wife who really broke the case for the officers, by backing up Mrs. Burgess’ story. “T don’t know whether my husband shot him or not,” she told Chief Wallace, “but to tell you the truth, I heard the shots fired, and my husband came back to the car without him.” Cool and unperturbed, she even told her part of the story of the rape. “We (her husband and she) had been arguing all day, and here he was carrying on with that poor woman like that. When I walked up on them, I figured I would just shoot him right then, but I changed my mind.” More substantiation of the incredible tale came from a search of the Vaughans’ car. A Luger pistol—the death weapon— a smaller-caliber pistol and a 16-gauge shotgun, with ample ammunition for each, were found in the Oldsmobile. A blood- stained shirt, which Mrs. Burgess said Vaughan was wearing when he beat her, also was found in the automobile. Convinced at last, Midland authorities contacted Sheriff R. C. (Dick) Richards of Hidalgo County, New Mexico, in Lordsburg, and he started immediately to organize a search for Burgess’ body. Federal Bureau of Investigation Agents became interested in the case be- by Gil Brewer He walked through the town with a gun, leay- ing a wake of slaughter behind! A novel of terror you will never forget, by the author of 13 FRENCH STREET. ta hey tw 0 es GM NO. 382 tee reed with death If your deoler is Gold Medal Novels from your local news dealer Original Gold Medal Novels—At All Newsstands TT YT | GM NO, 380 A KILLER IS LOOSE ONE THE ODDS postage ond wrapping t LICATIONS, GREENWICH, CONN. Ca | ens f AGAINST by Norbert Fagan For a lovely girl and a winner’s glory, he raced with death to a photo finish! By the author of THE CROOKED MILE. ens 1 26 oldo nd only 25¢ OLD MEDAL

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Posey Paes. faust the kidnap car had .rc.sed state lincs from Arizona to New Mexico and from New Mexico to Texas, making pos- sible prosecution under the Lindbergh Law. Charles W. Brown, Special Agent in Charge of the El Paso FBI office, threw his forces into the investigation, as did the head of the FBI’s Albuquerque office. G-Man Roy C. Dahl spent hours ques- tioning Vaughan Monday night, with little or no results. Tuesday afternoon, February 16, Sher- i Darnell of Midland County and Detec- tive Captain Billy Patterson set out for Lordsburg, 450 miles west, with Mrs. Burgess, who felt that she could help lo- cate the body. Her recollection was hazy from shock, however, and because of her unfamiliarity with the country, she had Jificulty pinning down the exact locality. By this time, New Mexico authorities, led by Sheriff Richards, State Police Cap- tain John Bradford and sheriff's deputies from neighboring Luna County, New Mexico, had begun their search. The south side of U. S. 80 was searched from Lordsburg, 60 miles east to Deming, with- vut a clue. Three privately owned light planes were pressed into service, but their cactus-jumping volunteer pilots were un- ible to turn up a trace of the body. The desert is fairly open, but sprinkled with sufficient greasewood and occasional mesquite clumps to make difficult the spotting of a body at any distance. Nu- merous “washes” — dry watercourses which carry off rainfall—presented plenty of places where a body might remain out of sight from the road. When Mrs. Burgess arrived in Deming Tuesday night, she said she believed the body might be closer to that city than to Lordsburg. Originally she had said that she thought the murder had taken place only a few miles outside Lordsburg: Early Wednesday, accompanied by Mrs. Burgess, four carloads of lawmen set out from Deming, working west. They traveled at a snail’s pace, with squinted eyes, long used to the desert glare, scan- ning the desert beyond the fence. In- cluded were the Midland officers, New Mexico state policemen, Hidalgo and Luna County sheriffs’ officers and FBI Agents. Meanwhile, in Lordsburg, a highway department worker named Andres Tarin presented himself to Chief of Police Lalo S. Sanchez. Tarin said he had been driving on U. S. 80 toward his home in Hatch, New Mex- ico, the previous Sunday, when he saw two women and a man walking from a railroad culvert toward the highway. He remembered the evefit well, because it was unusual to see persons on foot in‘that locality and because he could think of no reason’for their being there. Tatin was even able to produce descriptions of the women’s clothing from memory, and he told Sanchez he was sure he could take the search party to the spot. He had not given thought to the women and the man since he had seen them that day, until newspaper publicity on the case revived his memory, he said, As Mrs. Burgess felt sure the scene of the rape was within about three miles of the murder scene, it appeared that Tarin’s help would be valuable. Sanchez radioed the information to the search cavalcade and the lawmen speeded up, bound for Lordsburg to pick up Tarin. The last car in the four-auto train was occupied by Captain Patterson, Luna County Deputy Sheriff Ernest Irwin and FBI Agents Alton Warren and Herb Greathanae Ata pot abour seven aud a tall wules east of Lordsburg, Greathouse caught a glimpse of what he thought might be a pair of feet sticking out from behind a bush. The four marked the spot as being near a well-known side road, and drove on to Lordsburg. The posse picked up Tarin and started retracing its path, traveling a little more slowly now. The final carload asked the men in the other cars to look at the spot near the side road as they passed, to see if it appeared to be a body that the G-man had seen. All three cars slowed at the spot and their occupants looked, saw nothing —and went on. Still bringing up the rear, Greathouse, Warren, Irwin and Patterson again spotted the feet, and this time others veri- fied Greathouse’s sharp observation. The body was about 75 yards away, and only ven es OD NNEC HH YUpRE NO OGER YO eNIEEED An DeECU AE ADO MRA PCO HA THE CHALLENGE Bernie Howe, arrested in Glendale, Cali- fornia, after committing 17 robberies, ex- plained: "A guy said he pulled 104 jobs, so | started out to beat his record.” PONTO CM OE the feet and shoes were visible. They radioed the other cars, which returned; and the men went to the spot. Amos Burgess lay on his back, his face .and hands burned deep brown by the two and a half days of desert sun. Under his head, the thirsty sand of the desert was soaked with blood from two bullet holes. It was about 10 a.m. Sobbing, Mrs. Burgess identified the body as that of her husband. Grimly, the little cavalcade drove back to Lordsburg, .and the word quickly spread that Mrs. Burgess’ fantastic story had been substantiated in every detail. Later, other posse members located the railroad trestle under which evidence of the rape was found. Articles of under- clothing and empty pistol shells were found at the spot. \ Volunteer searchers, including a Las Cruces, New Mexico, man and an El Paso police lieutenant who had flown their privately owned light planes more than|\ 100 miles to help in the search, went back home, New$ services spread word of the atrocious crime all over the nation. Western justice, often notable for its swiftness, was set in motion almost im- mediately, By 2:30 p.m. that Wednesday, a coroner's inquest had been ordered by Justice of the Peace C. L. Brown, and a jury was sworn in in a mortuary where Burgess’ body lay on a porcelain slab while morticians worked. A handful of witnesses, mostly lawmen, testified, and Mrs. Burgess followed them to the stand, A pathetic figure with her blackened eyes and bandaged nose, crying freely through most of her testimony, Mrs. Burgess told her harrowing story to the six-man jury. The jury filed into the embalming room and, with eyes smarting from the pungent embalming-fluid odor, saw the bullet holes in the dead man’s head. The first shot apparently had been fired from be- hind him into the back of his head; it had come out on the right forehead, near the temple. The other shot, probably fired after Burgess was stretched on his back on the ground, entered under his chin and came out the back of his head. Deputies dug this slug from the bloody sand under Burgess’ head. Promptly and without use of super- fluous words, the jury returned a verdict that Burgess had died “by reason of gun- shot wounds apparently inflicted by 4 man called Marvin Vaughan.” ‘District Attorney Thomas P./Foy yr Silver City, New Mexico, why had b: ren in Lordsburg aiding in the search Wednesday, filed charges of murder against both Vaughan and his Wateten. mediately after the inquest adjourned. In New Mexico, a murder charge follows the death of any person at the hands of another person. Penalty, rangin; up to the electric chair in the state peni- tentiary in Santa Fe, is left up fo the jury. The jury also fixes the degree in which the murder was committed. Murder in the first degree carries a mandatory death penalty in the state. ; Z" Under continued questioning in Mid- land, Vaughan repeatedly refused to admit having committed the killing. Con- fronted with the facts that guns had been found in his car and that his wife had supported the story of Burgess’ wien . ‘the. he said he could recall nothing about murder at all. Neither he nor his wife be-. trayed any emotion when told of Burgess’ body haying been found. % “7 guess it's all true, like you say,” Vaughan finally said. “But I can’t re- member anything about it. If my wife says it is so, it must be, but I just can’t remember a thing about it.” Sheriff Richards, accompanied only. — by his wife, drove to Midland and picked up the Vaughans. Mrs, Vaughan, told that she, too, faced murder charges as an accessory because she drove the car and otherwise aided her husband, said she ~ wanted to get the trial “over with quick, © so I can have my baby.” : Both the Vaughans, handcuffed and riding together in the back seat of the car driven by the tall New Mexico sheriff, maintained a silence during most of the trip back to Lordsburg. , Though claiming he still did not re- member what had happened during the trip, Waughan seemed to have a perfect recollection of events prior to that time. He threw a_possible stumbling block in the path of prosecutors by saying he had escaped from a mental institution in” Springfield, Illinois. During the trip to Lordsburg, Vaughan and_his wife were lodged in Ef Paso County jail for about 40 minutes, while Sheriff Richards had dinner. As the pair was being taken from the jail, Vaughan ducked photographers but spoke willingly toa reporter in a soft, even voice. a, “I'm going to plead guilty,” he said in answer to a question, “I still don’t re member anything about it, but the evi- dence is so conclusive I shall plead guilty to escape the electric chair.” , There has been no indication from Foy as to whether Vaughan would be per- mitted to plead guilty. Because of the mandatory death sentence, a prisoner can- not plead guilty to first-degree murder. Therefore, if the district attorney hopes to seek the death penalty for Vaughan, he will ask the court to refuse the accused’s plea of guilty, and prosecute for first- degree murder. : : If a check of records, started by Sheriff Richards and now in progress, reyeals Vaughan was telling the truth when he said he had caeanee from a mental in- stitution, this may prove the man has been declared legally insane and may, there- fore, be immune from trial for murder. Whether Marvin Vaughan is mad or not, however, he has carved himself a “unique, bloody niche in the annals of Southwestern crime.” As a deputy sheriff said, after finding $21 in the pockets of the slain Amos Burgess, “This is 4 murder without a motive.” os

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