ON WORLDWIDE NEWS FRONT
‘From the Star Wire Services
gadjuster, today
# professed his in-
’nocence. But at
*Los Angeles,
‘Barr’s_ wife,
s Marie, 24, told
‘officials s he
new her hus-
,; band had mur-
# dered Andrew J.
‘Kmieck, 32,
. while posing as
Miss a prospec-
McCormick tive buyer of
GEN ER AL ANTHONY J. BARR, 53, A FORMER eonvenls
arrested at St. Louis, Mo., for the “murder by
‘appointment” slaying of a Los Angeles, Calif., insurance
Barr
bate betes peed et et LA <4
eo
Mrs. Barr i
2
‘Kmieck’s automobile. The wife said her husband brought |.
| Kmieck’s blood. -Spattered car to their Norwalf, Calif., home after).
the slaying. Kmieck, who had advertised his car for sale, was}
shot to death Nov. 21 in the
automibile in the presence of
his girl friend, Dolly Ann Mc-
Cormick, 22. It was Miss Mc-
Cormick who identified photo-
graphs of the suspected slayer
and put the police on his trail.
bray (7) '» POE 7/ Pa
~) go
, ren 0
te soem
“THERE'S A BODY IN
MY BASEMENT”
(TD August, 1955)
The baby sitter, Diane Hanks, 16,
spent the night of January Gth, 1954, at
the home of Wayne Fong and his wife,
Sherry, in Portland, Oregon. She was
not seen alive again.
On the morning of February 26th,
1954, a crew repairing a section of high-
way along the Columbia River came
upon a body wrapped in a green blanket
and bound with twine. It was identified
as that of Diane Hanks. .
Evidence seemed to indicate that the
young girl had died’ in the Fong home
and on April 14th, 1955, Wayne and
Sherry Fong went on trial for the mur-
der of Diane’ Hanks. Both denied the
crime, but on April 29th, after deliber-
ating Jess than three hours, the jury
brought in a unanimous verdict of guilty
of first-degree murder, decreeing life
imprisonment for the couple.
On June 29th Judge Alfred P. Dodson
ordered the convictions set aside and a
new trial put on the calendar.
“The jury reached its verdict too
fast,” the judge declared. “Factual com-
plexities were submitted which would
require hours of discussion and demand-
ed the gravest sense of office and pub-
lic obligation. None appears to have
been within the consideration of this
jury.”
No date has been set for the new
trial.
Diane Hanks
BORN A KILLER
(TD September, 1955)
Born in Baltimore, George Heroux Jr.
left school at 16 and soon learned that
there were easicr ways of making money
than working for it. His mentor was a
murderer. His best friend later died in
the electric chair.
In prison Heroux met Gerhard Puff.
On their release the pair held up half a
dozen Midwest banks. By Christmas
George Heroux Jr.
1951 both were on the FBI “10 Most
Wanted” list. Police and FBI agents
captured Puff in a Manhattan hotel after
he had slain FBI Agent Joseph Brock.
Puff was executed on August 12th,
1954,
Heroux, captured in a Miami suburb,
received a 25-year sentence in Florida,
with two Kansas terms of 15 and 10
years awaiting him, to be served con-
secutively on his release from the
Florida prison. On April 4th, 1955, he
engineered a jailbreak from the Florida
state penitentiary at Raiford, in’ the
course of which Assistant Superinten-
dent J. C. Godwin was killed and sev-
eral guards wounded.
On June 28th, 1955, a circuit court
jury at Lake Butler convicted Heroux
of first-degree murder, but recom-
mended mercy. Judge George L. Pat-
ten immediately sentenced Hceroux to
life imprisonment and he was taken, un-
der heavy guard, to Raiford prison.
Lplebier is
[Roel on eases published by TD
Report of latest legal developments
“HE'S THERE AND HE'LL
SHOOT ME!"
(TD March, 1954)
On November 2lst, 1953, Andrew
Kmiec, 32, an insurance adjuster, left
his Beverly Hills apartment to drive to
a Los Angeles hotel to show his con-
vertible, which he had advertised for
sale, to a prospective customer. With
him was a young friend, Dolly McCor-
mick.
They pleked up the man, Anthony J.
Zilbauer, 53, who asked Kmice to drive
to his home in Whittier, to show his wife
the car. On a lonely road Zilbauer sud-
denly drew a gun, told Kmiec, “I have
been hired to kill you,” and shot) the
young man in the face, shoulder and
heart.
The terrified girl managed to escape
the assassin and put police on the trail
of the murderer. Zilbauer was arrested
in St. Louis when he called at the post
office to pick up a letter. Returned to
California, he was arraigned on Decem-
ber 18th.
At his trial the jury founda Anthony
Zilbauer guilty of first-degree murder
in the death of Andrew Kmiec and on
March 8th, 1954, Judge Clement Nye
sentenced him to die in the gas chamber.
An appeal was made, but his convic-
tion was upheld by the California su-
preme court, which refused to hear a
second appeal. And the former Norwalk,
Ohio, machinist went to his death in the
California lethal gas chamber at San
Quentin.
HE WAS AFRAID OF GIRLS
(TD April, 1955)
In Passaic County Court, in Paterson,
New Jersey, John Heberling stood with
tears in his eyes on July 12th, 1955, and
heard the judge sentence him to serve
from 26 to 28 years in prison for the
knife-slaying on December 11th, 1954,
of his elderly next-door neighbor, Mrs,
Almira Force.
Between the hours of 7 and 11 o’clock
on Thursday night, December 16th, 1954,
four persons called at the home of Ken-
neth Force, a gabled frame house in
Clifton, New Jersey. One of them was
a murderer. When Mr. Force, a popular
Clifton restaurateur, returned home at
11 p.m., he found his wife, Almira, 59,
dead in their living room. She had been
beaten about the head and stabbed seven
times in the face, throat and body.
Three of the callers on that fateful
night obviously had no connection with
the crime
lings, 19, :
quent vis
been que:
and had };
of his m:.
murder.
vealed ce
ments.
On the
youth wi
test. He
proceedin
stopped i
Heberlin;
offered hi
denly he
that she °
slain her.
been afra
His tri
Mrs. Forc
1955. At
Passaic (
Stafford s
the follow
Superic
Davidson
trial bega
24th ai jr
men foun
ond-degre
HOW
ROBBER‘
On the
1950, An:
wife and
home in Nh
to Chapp:
as a guar:
afternoon
ploye to '
Pleasantv
cash and
wantonly
men who
away wit
binding a
employe.
On Dec
leek oer dnt
saVdeity, J0LU ONY wo Pe a
+ ‘ ) 4
i
.
Los Angeles Kmiec Riddle—
Pa
d He
* Andy Kmiec, right, and the car
he finally offered to give away
Was
d to Kill
“You Knew What This Is All About," Said the Gunman
Before He Fired Three Shots Into Andy Kmiec's Body.
But Kmiec Didn't Know, Nor Did Anyone Else, Until—
into the Norwalk substation of the
T? first report on the killing came
Los Angeles County sheriff's office
a few minutes after six o’clock Satur-"
day night, November 21, 1953.
A girl’s sob-choked voice pleaded:
“Hurry—please hurry! Somebody shot
Andy. It’s awful; please hurry!”
The experienced operator flicked the
“hot-shot” alarm switch and Detective
8
Lieutenant E.-T. Etzel picked up his
telephone receiver. He heard the oper-
ator saying, “Now, take it easy, Lady.
Give me your name and tell me where
you are.”
The nearly hysterical voice gave the
name of Dolly Ann McCormick, fol-
lowed by a pause and a faint blur of
words as the girl obviously turned to
ask someone where she was. At that
instant the operator cut in to inform
Etzel that she was reporting a shooting.
Then the girl’s voice resumed. She
was in a drug store on Los Nietos Tele-
graph Road,
“What happened?” Etzel asked.
“We were. in the car and the man
shot Andy and I ran. Please send an
ambulance! And hurry!”
“Stay right where you are,” Etzel
By J. K. Harris -
Special Investigator for .
OFFICIAL DETECTIVE
STORIES
told her. “We'll be there in a few min-
utes.”
On the way out>the door with his
partner, Detective Sergeant .Norman
Hamilton, Etzel called over his shoulder
to the phone operator: “Get an. ambu-
lance over there. We'll report in by
radio when we learn what it’s all
about.” ;
. The Homicide Squad team, with red
light on and siren screaming, sped
across Leffingwell Road and turned left
onto Telegraph Road, some ten miles
~ south of the city of Los Angeles, Cali-
fornia.
A blinking red light on a cruiser car
told the detectives that a patrol in the
district, advised by radio, was ahead of
them.
Deputy Gerald E. Rawley was stand-
ing beside a young girl, her chestnut
hair in disarray, her blue eyes red-,
rimmed from tears, her pretty cocktail
dress ripped and torn.
SENTENCE ZILBAUER
TO DEATH BY GAS
INKMIEC SLAYING
Los Angeles, March 8 (2) —
Anthony Zilbauer today was
sentenced to death in the gas
chamber for the slaying of An-
drew Kmiec, shot three times
during a demonstration ride in
a car he was trying to sell. Zil-
bauer was convicted by a jury
Friday.
‘Superior Judge Clement D.
Nye also sentenced Zilbauer,
52, to life imprisonment for
the kidnap- robbery of Mrs.
Belle Brooks. Zilbauer was
tried jointly on both charges.
Kmiec, 31, an insurance ad-
juster, was killed last Nov. 21.
He was accompanied on the
ride by Dolly McCormick and
a prospective purchaser of the
car. Miss McCormick, who de-
scribed the shooting on the
witness stand, testified the |:
prospect was Zilbauer.
nm = ete ed ee
eed eet I em
Glasses found near scene of crime were studied by Detectives Ned Louretovich and Norman Hamilton.
At the side of the road the officers tound a pair of broken
bifocal glasses, two unfired .38 caliber cartridges and one
of Andrew Kmiec’s shoes.
Helen Fenley described the killer as about five feet, seven
inches tall and weighing, perhaps, 150 pounds. He had been
wearing a plaid sports coat, was unshaven and possessed of
a set of decayed and discolored teeth. ;
The detectives sent the girl home and immediately check-
ed with Joe Barker, a test pilot, with whom Kmiec shared
the Westwood apartment.
Barker could throw no light on the affair. “Andy was a
very popular guy,” he said. “There wasn’t anyone who could
possibly want to kill him. However, I thought it was funny
that this guy, Garrett, insisted on buying the car on a Satur- -
day. After all, it was a holiday and the papers couldn’t have
been signed over until Monday. I mentioned it to Andv at
the time but neither of us thought it was a serious_ point.”
26
N the following morning when the story of Kmiec’s
murder was carried by the local newspapers an actor,
who lived in West Hollywood, got in touch with Captain
W. F. Rosenberg who had assumed command of the Kmiec
case.
The actor had advertised a Cadillac for sale. He had re-
ceived a phone call from a man who' called himself Garrett.
Garrett offered to meet the actor at the Biltmore hotel. He
promised he would have the cash ready to close the deal.
The actor had asked to call back. It was necessary, he
explained, to request a friend to drive to the Biltmore with
him in order that he could be taken home if the Cadillac
was sold. At this point Mr. Garrett stalled, said he wasn’t
sure what time he could keep the appointment and that he
would call back. He had never done so.
After reading the story of the Kmiec murder which had
apparently been committed by the same Garrett, the actor
HEADQUARTERS DETECTIVE
realized that
killer was dot
Captain Ri:
agreed.
Helen Fen
about constan
jewelry and o
recalled a cas
days before /
A young
that she had
coat which s
sable stole.
She receiv
description fi
He had arri
his wife cam:
suddenly dre:
He trussed
furs and a m
girl was rele
later. Where
After con
that not only
also with a
no apparent
car could hz
HEADQUARTE
' pot
»een found guilty
>, sentenced to 150
Page Case Book,
ne time taxi driv-
ie time of his first
his defense was *
Sounty, Ill. After
got word that oil
tract of land in
held an interest,
dered worthless.
SON, the 16-year-
school boy whose
ended with the
ither, and the fatal
and Alva Jackson,
‘armed him as he
vullet wounds, has
vo counts of mur-
eful of Hate, July
»rson shot Jackson
of 30 people. The
ased on “insanity
lity.”
— "as been found
t for the death
‘eannette Ear-
Have Her, March
annette had been
anon, Mo., home
admitted that he
fficers to her body
of town. She
: head. There
ittack. Priest
niece’s school, and
took her on a three-day holiday, and then
1 shot her. “I don’t know what you call
} loving something so much that you want
} to kill it,” he told officers. “Just blame it
- on being crazy, I guess.” Priest, however,
was found to be sane and went to trial
at LaClede County, Mo., Circuit Court.
ANTHONY ZILBAUER, 53-year-old
: Norwalk, O., machinist, went to his death
in the California lethal gas chamber for
the fatal shooting of Andrew Kmiec, 32,
on a lonely road near South Whittier, Cal.
(Look For a Psychopath, March FRONT
PAGE, 1954) Zilbauer, who made an ap-
pointment to see the car Kmiec had
advertised for sale, met Kmiec and his
‘girlfriend, directed them to a deserted
spot of highway, pulled a gun and shot
and killed Kmiec with two shots, but the
girl managed to get away. When. appre-
hended several weeks later, Zilbauer made
6 ae
a complete denial.
Although Zilbauer
was an ex-convict with a long record of
offenses, it was never shown that he had
been paid for Kmiec’s murder. Police
were unable to find a motive. At his
trial, it was shown that he was connected
with other burglaries involving answering
ads for items advertised for sale, and
that the murder gun was found in his
possession. He was found guilty and sen-
tenced to death. Appeal was made but
the California Supreme Court upheld the
conviction. But the court refused to hear
a second appeal, and Zilbauer went to his
death on schedule.
WILLIAM PATRICK Farrell, accused
of the mutilation murder of New York
University coed, Ann Yarrow, has been
found insane and will be committed to
the Matteawan, N. Y. hospital for the
Criminal Insane. (Who Murdered the
Village Coed, June FRONT PAGE, 1955)
3 Examining \psychiatrists reported that
: Farrell was a “sex maniac of the worst
} type.” Farrell, who was arrested after he
: tried to rape his sister-in-law a block
i from the Yarrow death scene, entered a
Fs mandatory verdict of innocent, and may
be tried for the murder if ever ruled sane.
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State |
RAISING PLAN FOR CHURCHES AND CLUBS. :
FORMER POLICE Lieutenant Louis
Shoulders is going to stay in jail a while
longer. Convicted of perjury over ques-
tions about just what happened to $300,-
000 of the $600,000 of the ransom money
paid to Carl Austin Hall, the kidnap-mur-:
derer of Bobby Greenlease, Shoulders was
sentenced to a three-year term. (Men Be-
hind The Kidnap, January FRONT PAGE,
1954) Shoulders was one of the officers
who arrested Hall and recovered the ran-
som money from him. Only half of the
money was ever accounted for. Accord-
ing to Shoulders’ testimony, he took the
money directly from ‘Hall to a police
station. An investigation followed, lead-
ing to Shoulders’ conviction. But after
he had served enough time to become
eligible for parole, the federal parole
board has announced that freedom for
Shouldérs will be denied for the present.
PAUL A. PFEFFER, who was con-
victed of the brutal slaying of seaman Ed-
ward Bates (Hothead, December FRONT
PAGE, 1953) but later released when killer
John Francis Roche claimed he was the
killer, has been implicated in two new
crimes. The.first, the brutal beating of
Harry Meyer, 45 (see Did Pfeffer Throw
Away His Biggest Break? page 46); the
second, the murder of Mellon Byrd, 60.
Pfeffer had been free on bail waiting re-
trial for the Bates murder, when Harry
Meyer identified him as the man who
had given him a beating, took his wal-.
let, and left him for dead. When po-
lice went to Pfeffer’s room, they discov-
ered papers belonging to Byrd, whose
body was found in a shack several. weeks
before. Pfeffer allegedly told police that
he met Byrd while returning home from
a drinking spree, became enraged when
Byrd called him “white trash,’ chased
him to the shack where he struck him
over the head with a piece of metal.
MRS. NANNIE DOSS has pleaded
guilty to the murder of her last husband,
Samuel Doss. Previously, a Tulsa, Okla.,
jury decided that Mrs. Doss, a giggling
grandmother who confessed to the rat-
poison murders of four husbands, is sane
enough to: stand trial. (What’s My Line?
March FRONT PAGE, 1955) The jury heard
ke i) Aone
1D) pales 2
sharply divided testimony from psychia-
trists during the three-day hearing, then
retired to decide whether Mrs. Doss is a
“mental defective with the brains of a
five-year-old child,” or merely a selfish,
conniving woman. Said Mrs. Doss, “I’ve
never felt more sane in my life. I guess
I ought to know better than anybody if
I’m crazy.” She now faces either a life
sentence or death in the electric chair.
s
J, mt Page petite Kugual (95S
ZILBAUER, Ant whi ras Ag ] j
AUER, Anthony, white, gassed CAP (San Bernardino) May 13, 1955.
MURDER BY APPOINTMEN
by Bill O’Rourke
Criniinals who think they’ve got a new approach to murder
usually find it’s old stuff to police who've seen if before
* EVERYTHING was coming up roses. for Andrew Kmiec, who was also in his twenties, was an insurance
. p F . , adjuster. He led a quiet life and was intensely ambitious.
. meee when he tej ic eee a prweon oak hci It was this ambition which was the indirect cause of the
in the afternoon. His current girl friend, Helen Fenley, trip he was taking on this Saturday afternoon, November
was sitting beside him in his Mercury convertible as they _ Ines vests cea S iiecduca
. : 7. miec had decided to dabble in real estate. He had foun
headed toward the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los An a piece of property which could be cheaply bought and
geles. They were a happy pair. Helen was young, in her which he considered an excellent investment. In order to
early twenties, and exceptionally pretty. She had arrived raise the cash o grins gh nest he had run vi tere
j ; . 5 . ment in one of the Los Angeles newspapers, offering Nis
in California only a short time before and was staying Mercury for sale, for $2,75 oe pap g
with her uncle in Los Angeles. He had received a reply from a man named Garrett who
Floor of blood-stained murder car was examined for clues by Homicide Detective Norman Hamilton.
‘4
-,
| >
|
|
|
. HEADQUARTERS DETECTIVE
24
IGATATTADMEDE NemcormTip T
HEADQUARTERS DETECTIVE, Dec.,
1964
lived in Whitti
wood apartme
with Kmiec at
Kmiec park
moment later
and noticeably
Fenley and sa
rett likes the c
closes the dea
As they dré
said, the supe:
married, had c
couldn’t resist
“T always g
said. “That’s h
buy a lot of ft
It’s usually mt
stores.”
When they
Kmiec to mak
came to a dea
Kmiec stop;
suspicion. “Ar
“I know w
voice. He thri
Murder
HEADQUARTERS
eu dose ee
insurance ;
ambitious.
use of the
November
had found
ought and
a order to
advertise-
ffering his
jarrett who
RTERS DETECTIVE
lived in Whittier, some 30 miles away from Kmiec’s West-
wood apartment. Garrett had arranged an appointment
with Kmiec at the Biltmore Hotel.
Kmiec parked the car outside the hotel and returned a
moment later in the company of a little man of middle age
and noticeably bad teeth. He introduced Garrett to Helen
Fenley and said, “We’re driving out to Whittier. Mr. Gar-
rett likes the car, but he wants his wife to see it before he
closes the deal.”
As they drove, Garrett chatted constantly. He was, he
said, the superintendent of a large pottery works. He was
married, had children and although quite well-to-do simply
couldn’t resist a bargain.
“I always go through the classified ads in the paper,” he
said. ‘“That’s how I saw your ad about the car. That way I
buy a lot of furs, jewelry and other stuff from individuals.
It’s usually much cheaper than buying the same stuff in the
stores.”
When they reached Painter Avenue, Garrett instructed
Kmiec to make a right turn. But Painter Avenue, it seemed,
came to a dead end in a desolate, unpopulated spot.
Kmiec stopped the car and regarded Garrett with some
suspicion. “Are you sure you know where you're going?”
“I know where you’re going,” said Garrett in an odd
voice. He thrust his hand into his pocket and brought it
out again. Now he was holding a gun.
“Are you crazy?” asked Kmiec. “Why should you want
to kill me? If you want my money or the car, take it. But
don’t harm this girl or myself.”
Garrett’s answer was to aim his gun and press the trigger.
Andrew Kmiec uttered a sharp cry and collapsed in the seat.
Helen Fenley flung open the door and leaped into the road.
A shot sounded behind her.
EADLIGHTS suddenly encircled her. Helen Fenley
waved frantically. A car stopped.
“Get me to a phone,” cried the girl, on the verge of hys-
terics. “My friend’s been killed and the murderer is trying
to kill me, too.”
The motorist sped to a drugstore from which the girl
telephoned the sheriff’s substation at Norwalk.
Deputies arrived at once and Miss Fenley showed them
the spot where Kmiec had been shot. The Mercury was no
longer there. Kmiec lay in a clump of bushes at the side of
the road. He had been shot through the face, the shoulder
and ‘the heart.
Some twenty minutes later, Homicide Captain Kenneth
Irving and Lieutenant Al Etzel of the Los Angeles County
sheriff's office joined Deputy Rawley and Sergeant Hamilton
who were already at the scene.
Murder gun held by District Attorney Rolls (below, I.); and bullet (I.) in other photo taken from victim's body.
HEADQUARTERS DETECTIVE
es
"
‘
One man's shoes, another's glasses—
and other clues found by police
“This is Miss McCormick, the girl
who called,” Rawley said to Etzel as the
Lieutenant approached them.
“What's it all about?”
“Somebody shot her boy friend up the
road near the intersection of Lakeland
and Painter.” _Rawley turned to indi-
cate a man standing near him. “This
is Ernest Olsen. He saw her running
down the road and picked her up.”
“Let's find that wounded man,” Etzel
said. “Miss McCormick, you get in the
car with us.”
ETZEL questioned the girl as Hamil-
ton drove. In a rush of words, she
told him that she had been in an auto-
mobile with Andrew J. Kmiec, a friend
of hers, and another man she did not
know. Kmiec had met this unidenti-
fied man at the Biltmore Hotel in Los
Angeles to show him the car which he
had advertised for sale. They were en
route to the Whittier district, at the |
stranger's suggestion, so he could show rn
the automobile to his wife.
“He -pulled a gun out of his hip
pocket,” Miss McCormick said. “He
made Andy get in the back seat and
:said he'd been hired to kill Andy. When
I heard the first shot, I jumped out of
the car. Then I heard two more shots;
I think he was nn at me.”
“What's this about the stranger being
hired to kill your friend?” Etzel asked.
“That’s what he said. Andy told him
it must be a mistake but he just
laughed and said it wasn’t.”
Hamilton braked the police car be-
hind a sedan standing in the road with
a man beside it.
“That isn’t Andy’s car!” Miss.Mc-
Cormick cried. ;
The detectives got: out with their
—- rd *)
ivenacsts Fisk ots
Because the killer drove off with her coat, Dolly McCormick
wears Sergeant Hamilton's while she tells him what happened
guns drawn, Seeing the officers com-
ing toward him, the man shouted: “I
don’t know anything about this! I just
stopped! The fellow is over there; I
think he’s dead.”
Etzel and Hamilton readily spotted
the body in the tall weeds near the road.
Approaching it, they could see a bloody
hole in the side of the face and a sticky
stain spread over the shirt front. He
was dead. -
The man in the road identified him-
.Self as Menno Butler’ of Leffingwell
Road. He said he had been driving
past the spot when his son saw a shoe
lying on the pavement.
“I stopped and backed up,” Butler
- said. “It looks like a hit run. There’s
& lot of blood.on the pavement back
there. And a pair of glasses and this
shoe, with blood on them both.”
Etzel told Hamilton: “Put on some.
flares and keep everybody away from
the body and the bloody spot on the
road. ‘I'll callin. Apparently the killer
drove off in the dead man’s car; if we’re
lucky we might stop him.”
Usine the car radio, Etzel gave the
substation operator directions to
Pass on to the ambulance. Next, as. he
questioned the girl about the victim’s
car and the killer, he féd the descrip-
tions into the microphone,
The car was a 1953 cream-colored
Mercury convertible with a white top.
It bore Indiana plates, but the girl did,
not know the numbers.
The killer was about 45, light brown
hair, slight, five feet ten inches tall,
wearing a brown suede jacket ‘and
brown flannel trousers. He had un-
even, discolored teeth and needed :
shave.
“Get after that car right away,” Etze
ordered. “It’s got less than a half-hou
start on us, Call the Highway Patro
and request road blocks.”
HE NEXT asked that Chief of Detec
tives Gordon Bowers and Captait
Floyd Rosenberg of the sheriff’s Centra
Station be notified. “And get the lal
crew out here right away. We're up t
our necks in a messy killing.”
._ Hamilton meanwhile questionec
Olsen, the man who had picked up Mis:
McCormick and driven her to the dru;
store. He gave his occupation ds ¢
farmer and said he lived in Norwalk.
“I saw her running down the road
When I stopped for her, she told me
somebody had shot her boy friend. }
noticed the convertible when I passed.
but I figured I hadn’t better go back: 1
sped on in to the drug store.”
“You.did right,” Hamilton told him.
“Did you see anyone around the con-
vertible when you passed it?” .
“No. Not a soul.”
Etzel came up and Hamilton told
him; “Those glasses on the road could
belong to the killer. The body in the
weeds has a pair on.”
As they were talking the ambulance
crew arrived. Etzel picked up the rim-
less, gold frame -glasses and showed
them to Miss McCormick.’ They were
nae type the killer had worn, she
said.
Etzel made an addition to the
description of the man that was being
broadcast throughout the state by
radio and by the network of teletypes.
2 9
“He was wearing glasses and may fave
dropped them here. They are bi-focals
with thick lenses; so he may have
difficulty- seeing.”
The ambulance doctor examined the
body and pronounced the man dead.
“Shot through the right side of the face
at the top of the jawbone, the chest at
about the heart level and the right
shoulder,” the doctor declared.
“Notify the coroner when you get in,”
Etzel directed. “‘There’s no hurry. We
won’t want him moved until our lab
crew shows up.”
Etzel then went back to the police car
where Miss McCormick sat, dazed, dry
sobs shaking her slight figure.
“Tt’s like a horrible nightmare,” she
told him. “I can’t believe it’s true. A
thing like that just couldn’t happen.”
“J know,” Etzel replied. “But it did.
If you'll try to pull yourself together, I
have some questions I'd like to ask.”
“I'll tell you anything I can,” the girl
said. “Anything. Why didn’t he kill
me,-too? He was shooting when I fell;
he must have missed me.” ;
“You said you heard three shots?”
Etzel asked. sit
Miss McCormick nodded. “One in
the car-and the other two while I was
running.”
Etzel said flatly, ‘“The body has three
bullets in it.” Then, “I'd like you to tell
me who you are first.”
Miss McCormick was 21 years old.
She had moved to Los Angeles from her
_ parents’ home in Prairie Grove,
Arkansas, only four months previously
and lived with the family of her cousin,
James Parks, sales manager for Tele--
vision Station KNBH, at his home on
Hortense Street.. A graduate of the.
University of Arkansas, she worked as
a stenographer.
She had met Andrew J. Kmiec, 32-
year-old insurance adjuster, at a party
two months before and they had been
10
Mr. and Mrs. Coward: He couldn't recall
the .stranger; she couldn't forget him
seeing each other several times a week
since then.
Kmiec lived in a bachelor apartment
with another man on North Beverly
Glen Boulevard. He had been'in Los
Angeles only six months. she knew; his
home was in Hammond, Indiana. When
he had been in the Air Force, stationed
for awhile at Fresno, he'd decided he
liked California and because he was
bothered by arthritis he had returned
to live there.
**x 7OW, about today,” Etzel said.
“Start at the beginning. When
did you meet Kmiec and what hap-
pened?”
Miss McCormick said that Kmiec had
phoned her around two o'clock and
asked her to have dinner with him; this
was a Saturday and she was not work-
ing. He had an appointment to show
his car to a prospective buyer, he’d said,
‘and they would eat afterward.
“He came to the house at half-past
four and we left about-a quarter to five.
We sat around talking to Jim, my
cousin, for a few minutes. Then .we
drove to town and arrived at the Bilt-
more a little after five. Andy went into
the hotel to meet this man.” . ‘
Etzel interrupted. “Do you know if
the man lived at the Biltmore?’ Or how
Kmiec would be able to recognize him?
Had he ever seen this man before?”
“J don’t think so—I mean, I don’t
think the man lived at the hotel. Andy
said he was going to meet him in the
lobby. I don’t khow how he recognized
him; I guess it was some arrangement
they'd made over the telephone.”
When Kmiec and the man came out
of the hotel, Kmiec introduced him, but
Miss McCormick could not recall the
name he had given. “He just sort of
mumbled it and I didn’t pay any atten-
tion,” she went on. . “He looked the car
over and said he liked it and asked
_ Andy if he could show it to his wife be-
cause he was buying it for her.”
Kmiec agreed to drive out to see the
wife and they got into the car. Kmiec
drove and Miss McCormick sat in the
center, between the two men. The
stranger said he lived in the Santa Fe
Springs-Whittier area and directed
Kmiec to Whittier Boulevard.
“Was this fellow nervous?” Etzel
asked. “Did he try to hide his face or
disguise his voice?” ;
“No. He seemed very much at ease.
He did most of the talking.”
“Do you think he knew Mister Kmiec
or Kmiec knew him before they met in
the hotel?”
“I dont’ think so. I’m almost positive
they didn't know each other.”
Asked about the conversation on the
drive, Miss McCormick said the man
had mentioned that he was in the pot-
tery business. She thought he said he
had a factory in either Santa Ana or -
Santa Anita. He told them that his
grandfather had a secret process which
would prevent pottery from chipping.
“He seemed to-know what he was talk-
ing about,” Miss McCormick said.
HEN they reached Painter Avenue
in Whittier, the man had told
Kmiec to turn right. “After a short
ways, he pulled the pistol out of his hip
pocket and told Andy to stop and get in.
the back seat,” the girl said. “He told
me to get behind the wheel and drive.”
When Kmiec was in the back seat, the
gunman had said, “You know what this
is all about, don't you?”
Kmiec replied, “Yes. If you want
money you can have it, and the car, too.
Just don’t hurt us.”
The gunman laughed. “I don’t want
your money, or this car, either. You
got an enemy who hired me to kill you.”
Kmiec had protested that he had no
enemies and the whole deal must be a
mistake. With no show of emotion, the
gunman insisted that it was not. Kmiec
promised not only to give him the.
money in his wallet and the car, but
also to withdraw his savings from the
bank and cash in his bonds and give it
all to the killer if he would spare them.
The man with the gun laughed at
pon offer, “I’m being well paid for this
ob.”
Sgts. Lovretovich and Hamilton knew a man’s glasses
are almost as distinctive as are his finger-prints
Kmiec continued to plead for his life,
insisting over and over that he had no
enemies who would want him killed.
Failing in that, he again offered to pay
the gunman more than he had been -
offered to do the killing. _ :
Ts gunman told him: “You know
who it is who hired me, and you
haven't got a chance. I'm just sorry the
girl is along. It’s got to be done, and
that’s all there is to it.”
_ Miss McCormick said she had been
terrified by what she heard. When the
gunman ordered her to stop on the
dark, lonely road, she had been afraid to
move until she heard the shot. Then,
almost involuntarily, she had leaped
out of the car and run up the road,
hearing two more shots.
“I must have caught the belt to my
dress on the car door,” she said. “It
ripped right off.” ;
“Did you leave the keys in the car?”
Etzel asked. :
“I think so.”
“Was the motor running?”
“I don't know. I think so.”
The laboratory crew, under the di-
rection of R. W. Becker, arrived then
and Etzel left Miss McCormick, telling
her, “You just wait here. We'll have to
take you to Headquarters after a bit for
a complete statement.”
a
Via!
Flashbulbs exploded as Becker's men —:
photographed the scene. From the
road, the lab crew picked up a penny,
three unfired .38 cartridges for an auto-
matic, two buttons and the bloodstained
shoe and glasses. The buttons were
found to be from Miss McCormick's
dress, apparently pulled off as she fled
from the car. The shoe was Kmiec’s.
“Take good care of those glasses,”
Lieutenant Etzel told Becker. “The
killer dropped them and they could be
our best clue.”
Becker and his men had finished with
the body. “His wallet was in his pocket
with thirty-five dollarsin it. He had
ten dollars and eighty-three cents in
his trousers pockets and, his wrist-
watch, cuff links, tie clasp and fountain
pen were still on him, so it doesn’t look
like robbery was the motive, unless the
fellow just wanted the car.”
“No. The girl says the killer told
them he was hired for the job.”
2
Etzel told him that the house was
being guarded and suggested that he
keep Miss McCormick away from
crowds or any place where'a stranger
might get to her.
“Do you think she's in actual
danger?” Parks asked.
“She’s the only witness,” Etzel ex-
plained. “We don’t want to frighten
you, but you.should be aware of the
possibilities.” 4
Meanwhile, Irving and Hamilton
went to Kmiec’s apartment but Alex
Milne, Kmiec’s roommate, was not
there. Captain Irving phoned in: “It’s
a swank place. We're talking to the
other tenants about Kmiec and we'll
stick around until the roommate comes -
in.”
Lovretovich and Hallinan, using the
description of the slayer, went through
the Biltmore looking for anyone who
might have witnessed the meeting in
the lobby. They questioned clerks, bell-
boys, bartenders, doormen, cab
drivers—without results.
No report had come in from any of
the numerous road blocks watching for
Kmiec’s car. And with the passing of
time, the possibility became stronger
that the killer had abandoned the auto,
for the distinctive convertible with
Indiana license plates surely would
have been recognized at one of. the
many points set up from San Francisco
to San Diego and east as far as Las
Vegas and Reno, Nevada.
WHILE they awaited developments,
Captain Rosenberg told Bowers,
“apparently. the only link between the
killer and Kmiec is the newspaper want
ad.”
Bowers agreed and Rosenberg point-
ed out: ‘But the ad gives Kmiec's tele-
phone number only, not his name.”
“Then,” the chief said, ‘if the killer
was hired to do the job, the person who
wanted Kmiec out of the way must have
known he was selling his car. It
furnished a perfect set-up for the -
hired gun to make a contact.”
But the big question was: Why had
the gun been hired?
What in Kmiec’s past could have
motivated the slaying? Money? Wom-
en? Gambling? A wrong of some kind,
fanciful or real, that had rankled in the
victim’s mind?
A little after eleven o’clock,. Alex
Milne, a test pilot for the Lockheed
Aircraft Company, returned to the
apartment. He was shocked at the
news of Kmiec’s death.
“I should have gone with him!”
Milne cried in remorse. “Andy asked
me to. I guess he had a premonition.
But I had a date for the football game.”
“What do you mean, premonition?”
Irving asked.’
“Well, this noon, when Andy finisH@d
talking to the fellow on the telephone,
he said he didn’t like the deal. This
fella told him the car sounded like what
he wanted and the price was right and
he told Andy to meet him at the Bilt-
more.” :
Irving interrupted. “Do you know
if the man was staying there?”
“I'm sure he wasn’t. I overheard
Andy suggesting places they might
meet. I guess they picked the Biltmore
because it’s downtown.”
“Did Kmiec mention any name, or
how he’d know the fellow when he met
him at the hotel?” Hamilton asked.
Milne shook his head.
“About this premonition.”
“Andy asked me if I'd go with him.
He said, ‘What if this fellow pays me
for the car and then shoots me and
takes the money and the car?’ I didn’t
take it seriously. I told him he didn’t
stand much of a chance of getting shot
as long as they made the transaction in
the lobby of the hotel.”
Informed that Kmiec apparently had
been slain by someone hired to do the
job, Milne scowled and said he didn’t
believe it could be true.
Irving asked: “Has he been worried
lately? Did he get any strange tele-
phone calls? Have you noticed any-
thing unusual about the people he's
been with or the way he acted?”
Crossing the room, Milne sat on a
davenport. He lighted a cigaret and
dragged deeply. The shock of the news
was telling on him, Finally, speaking
slowly, he said that he hadn't noticed
anything unusual about Kmiec. :
“Andy was a swell guy,” he said
softly. “Just a real nice fellow. I
haven’t known him long, but he was the
kind of a man you'd trust with your
wallet or your sister.”
“How about girls?” Hamilton asked.
“Sure. But nothing serious. Just
dates for a good time, somebody to eat
with or take to the theater.”
“This McCormick girl?”
Milne said, ‘“He’s been seeing her
quite often. She’s a nice kid and they
got along fine. It might have grown
into something, but I don’t think it had
reached that point for either of them
yet.”
“Why. was he selling his car?”
Milne told the same story Miss Mc-
Cormick had—that Kmiec wanted to
buy a lot and build a house. “Andy was
thirty-two, and smart. It costs a lot of
dough to live in a good apartment. He
figured that a man might as well buy a
house and save his money.”
a?
day, the detectives left the apartment,
From Headquarters, Rosenberg
meanwhile had phoped C. H. Tandy,
the branch manager of the firm for
which Kmiec had worked. Tandy, who
was at home, had heard the news of the
slaying over the late news broadcast.
OSENBERG learned that Kmiec had
been with the company for eleven
months. He was considered an excep-
tional employe and scheduled for ad-
vancement.
Tandy knew of no trouble Kmiec had
had with any -of the accounts. ‘Most
of the stuff he worked on was just small
claims—cigaret burns and things like
that. I don’t think he had many that
ran much over a few hundred dollars.”
“We'd like a list of all the claims he’s
worked on,” Rosenberg said.
“Tomorrow is Sunday. How ideas
Monday?”
“I'm afraid I'll have to insist on the
information sooner,” Rosenberg said.
“This is a killing.”
“T'll do it myself, the first thing in the
He Worked in a Pottery Plant,
He Told His Victims.
He Had
Three Children; One of Them
Had Broken the Screen of His
Television Set.
He'd Had His
Wife's Car Repaired for $2I.
Would Police Find That Each
Of These Remarks Was False—
Planted by This Clever Killer?
Questioned about gambling, debts,
possible enemies, Milne couldn't think
of anything as a motive.
“Why don’t you call Andy’s brother-
in-law?" he asked. ‘“He’s the chief of
police in East Chicago, Indiana, and he
ought to know the kind of stuff you're
looking for.” .
A search through Kmiec’s possessions
produced the brother-in-law’s name:
Mike Vinovich.
Irving phoned the information in to
Chief Bowers and then he and Hamil-
ton searched the apartment to see if any
of Kmiec’s personal papers would have
any bearing on the slaying. {
Near the telephone they found a
scratch pad on which Kmiec had made
a note of his date with the killer. The
hotel name and the time were written
down and below them a scrawl.
“What do you make of this?” Irving
asked Hamilton. “It looks like a name
but I can’t figure it out.”
The officers studied the almost form-
less letters. They were nearly illegible
and the best they could decipher was,
“Ant?” Hamilton questioned. “That
raed aname. What else could it stand
or?”
Irving scratched his lower jaw,
puzzled. “I don’t know. We'll give it
to the lab boys and see what they can
do with it.”
The word “ant”? meant nothing to
Milne. After further-questioning and
a promise from Milne that he would
drop into Headquarters the following
morning,” Tandy promised: “And I'll
call you just as soon as I have it.”
A long-distance telephone call to
Kmiec's brother-in-law produced noth-
ing about the past life of the victim that
would indicate a motive for the slaying.
Chief Vinovich declared that Kmiec
had been in the roofing business there
and was highly regarded. He promised
to talk to all of Kmiec’s friends and call
back if he learned anything.
“Andy has a brother in Hammond,”
Vinovich said. “Do you want me to
notify him or do you want to call him
yourself?”
Chief Bowers decided he would call
and soon he was talking to Joseph
Kmiec. But the brother was unable to
tell him anything of value that he did
not already know.
“Th catch the first plane out,” Joseph
said. “That should get me to Los
Angeles sometime tomorrow. I'll do
anything I can to help find the person
who killed my brother.”
By Sunday morning still no word had
come in on Kmiec’s convertible. The
investigators felt certain that the
killer had abandoned the automobile.
Bowers ordered a concentrated search
in the sprawling, heavily populated
area south of Los Angeles.
“We had the road blocks up so -
quickly, I don’t think he could have
slipped through,” Bowers declared.
“My thought is that the killer is familiar
with the Whittier, Los Nietos and Rivera
areas and that’s why he took his victim
out there. He may have had his own
car parked somewhere near and left
Kmiec’s convertible on a side street.”
Technical reports also were avail-
able Sunday morning.
Doctor Newbarr had completed the
autopsy on the body, recovering two of
the slugs. The third shot had passed
through Kmiec's shoulder and_ the
bullet probably still was in the’ car.
Ballistics experts examined the lead
slugs and announced the land and
groove marks were sufficient to make a
positive identification of the gun if it
could be located.
The lab crew brought in two reports.
One was on the handwriting found
on the pad beside Kmiec's telephone.
Technicians also believed that the
scrawl on the pad spelled, “ant”. They
could not tell whether it was the
abbreviation of a name, possibly An-
thony, or whether it held some other
meaning.
Chief Bowers kept the word in front
of him as he examined the list of clients
on whose claims Kmiec had worked and
the names of friends and acquaintances
of the slain man.
The other Jab report was on the’
glasses found at the scene. The lenses
definitely could not have belonged to
Kmiec and must have been dropped by
the slayer.
A number of points in the report on
the glasses were promising. An op-
tometrist declared that he had found
small pits in the lenses indicating the
owner might have worked as a machin-
ist or around some kind of grinding
equipment.
This agreed with an observation by
Miss McCormick that the killer had the
rough, calloused hands of a laborer. .
Also with the killer's mention of work-
ing in pottery. :
The optometrist placed the glasses as
being between five and fifteen years old
and said that the left lens might have
been broken and replaced recently be-
-cause it showed less pitting than the
right lens.
Bowers seized on this fact and issued
an order for 1,100 circulars with a com-
plete description of the glasses to be
sent out immediately to every optome-
trist in the Greater Los Angeles area.
These circulars asked the optometrists
to go through their records for a
prescription that might have been
issued for the glasses found at the scene.
The circulars carried the following in-
formation: Right lens, plus 2.75-75x75.
Left lens, plus 3.25-1.00x90. Bifocal
correction, add on plus 1.75 segs, 13x22
m over m. Rimless bifocals. Cruxite
lens, A-shade, size 44 over 40 m over m,
shaped FV-405. Mounting, Shuron
Hi-bar, fifteen years old. Temple bows,
flesh Zyle, skull-fit temples.
But as the physical evidence mounted,
the motive .for the weird slaying re-
mained as obscure as ever. Bowers had
Miss McCormick brought to Head-
quarters for requestioning, in an effort
to learn anything the girl might have
overlooked while in the emotional state
of shock. .
By going over every movement that
she had made and every word she
could recall after she had met Kmiec
on Saturday afternoon, the detectives
came up with three more possible
leads.
IRST, Miss McCormick recalled that
the killer, while talking about him-
self on the ride, had mentioned that
one of his children had broken the
screen of his television set recently.
“That's hardly the kind of thing a
fellow would make up,” Bowers told
Captain Rosenberg. “Put as many men
as you can to canvassing television-re-
pair shops. Have them start with the
Whittier district and spread out.”
Second, Miss McCormick recalled
that Kmiec had stopped to buy gaso-
line on Whittier Boulevard. She could
not recall the exact location but, taken
over the route by officers, she pointed
out a station on Whittier Boulevard. .
The attendant there recalled servic-
ing a cream-colored convertible, but he
had not noticed the passengers in the
car.
The third lead held more promise.
As they were driving along, Miss
McCormick said, the man had pointed
ear inencnatniacnmsanaselaI,
Becker glanced toward the still form
in the weeds. “Whoever paid for the
job got his money’s worth. How come
he didn’t kill the girl?” ~
“She says she ran.”
Becker shrugged. “He had the car
and a thirty-eight automatic and he
only used three slugs on the man. He
could have caught her.”
“I know,” Etzel replied. ‘“That’s
something we've got to figure out.”
The coroner's men picked up the body
to take it to the county morgue, where
Chief Autopsy Surgeon Doctor Fred-
erick D, Newbarr would perform the the
post mortem, and Lieutenant Etzel and
Hamilton took Miss McCormick to the
Norwalk Station. There they were
joined by Chief Bowers, Captain Rosen-
berg, Captain K. E. Irving and
Sergeants W. E. Hallinan and Ned
Lovretovich.
The investigating officers gave Chief
Bowers a quick review of the details and
he questioned Miss McCormick, asking
if she thought the killing of Kmiec could
be connected to her in any way.
“How do you mean?” the girl asked.
“Somebody may have been jealous of
the attention shown you by Kmiec.”
Miss McCormick flatly said that this
was impossible. She had no serious
suitors and had known Kmiec just two
months. During her brief stay in Los
Angeles, she had met only a few men.
While she was a co-ed and in her home
town, she had gone out with other men
but she was not engaged or at all serious
about any of them.
An artist's sketch and a police
photo: Were they the same man?
7
A
aos
fo pry ae Cine on Tk Neal - Laas Pie amd
‘
Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz questions: Mrs. Anthony Barr about
the letter pinned behind one of the draperies in her home
At Bowers’ insistence, she made out a
list of every man she ever had dated,
including the college boys. Each
eventually would be questioned by the
police. . ;
_ Captain Rosenberg asked, “During
the time you knew Kmiec, did he seem
worried or upset, as if somebody had
threatened him?”
“Not at all.”
“Do you know if Kmiec gambled?
Could he have been in debt?- Was that
the reason he was selling his car?”
“I don't know that he gambled. And
I doubt it, because he didn’t even smoke
or drink. He told me he was selling, his
car to buy a lot in Beverly Glen, where
he was going to build a house later.”
— you engaged?”
“No.
understand about the house. He
wanted to live in Los Angeles and he ,
thought it was silly to pay high rent
for an apartment.”
Bowers broke in. “This killer—did
he give any hint to the person who had
. hired him?”
“No.. He just said Andy would know.
But I don’t think Andy did. I could tell
by the way he pleaded with the man
that it was a mistake.”
Talking to the girl, the officers
realized that they had a number of
things to do in a hurry.
First, they'd want to talk to Kmiec’s
employer. As an insurance adjuster,
the slain man might have angered
someone to the point of plotting re-
venge.
You'd have to know Andy to-
Also they’d question employes and
guests of the Biltmore to see if they
could find anyone who might have wit-
nessed the meeting in the lobby between
Kmiec and the killer.
They'd visit Kmiec’s apartment to
interview his roommate. And _ the
» glasses found on the scene would be éx-
amined by an optometrist to learn how
the lenses were ground.
“The glasses coulds be a big lead,”
Bowers declared. ‘Tomorrow is Sun-
day, but we ought to find somebody to
work on them right away.” ;
While Miss McCormick waited in an
anteroom Bowers made assignments fi
_these jobs. He told Etzel, “You take tl
girl home and talk to the people the
to see if they know anything.
“I'm assigning a couple of men '
cover the place where she lives. Wai
her and the family .to be careful. W
can’t take any.chances until the kill
is q@ught.”
“Do you think she’s in danger?”
OWERS shrugged. “I know th
much. She's the only witness.
don’t know why he didn’t kill her whe
he had the chance.”
Etzel said: “It’s funny, isn’t it?”
“Maybe. And maybe he had orde
not to touch her. Or he didn’t care. I
was getting paid for killing Kmiec ar
wasn't throwing in any extra. B
when he gets a chance to think about
he’ll realize that the girl is the one pe
son who can finger him.”
“Then you think the story about t!
fellow being hired is on the level ar
this character didn’t just spot the ad
the newspaper and take Kmiec on
ride for his car.”
“If that was the case,” Bowers sai
“he'd have killed the girl, too, and tak«
Kmiec’s money and watch. He'd knc
he couldn’t get far in the car after t)
girl reported the shooting. Something
screwy behind this, but it's too early
tell what gives yet.”
Lieutenant Etzel took Miss McCo
mick home and, there he talked wil
James Parks, her. cousin, who confirn
ed all the statements Miss McCormi
had given concerning herself.
“I’m sure it couldn’t have been do:
by anyone who was jealous of Dolly
Parks declared. “She hardly knoy
anyone here in Los Angeles. And t)
fellows back home—well, it was ju
college-kid stuff.” “
l
stau failed
late after-
decided to
him. They
~ uld be able
came upon
e bars and
They be-
‘cond time.
irday night,
poolroom
t. Nicholas
suspect’s
ad looked
where the
came the
ls and the
The cigar-
the shaded
01 tables.
| reflective-
he rubbed
x. He lean-
is left hand
reen cloth.
his braced
thumb, he
and forth
ition of
ar,” he
He viewed
ion, steady-
\ the over-
thick black
oily hair
ed. He had
hirt over a
dungarees.
es clearly.
‘r, his eyes
». Gallagher
the player
a smooth
all clicking
|. The four
id vanished
e cue ball,
’ applied to
position tor
approvingly,
r admitted
the two big
om his lips.
er told him.
e man said.
ruys?”
Devlin told
o talk with
ield.
he agreed.
out.”
frisk and
ying a wea-
nterest that
in money—
2n_ they
ause of
tnat it was
not easy to
o the shoot-
time.
“ERS DETECTIVE
Le ee ne
Geet Lieutenant Matchim and
his aides began questioning the
man, “Where were you on Friday night,
Columbus Day?” the lieutenant de-
manded.
“I wasn’t nowhere near that super-
market, if that’s what you mean,”
Ristau said.
“You fit the description,” Poehlman
told him.
“So do la million other guys,” Ristau
retorted,
“Then, where were you?” Matchim
pressed him.
Ristau shrugged, “I had a date with
a doll.”
He provided the girl’s name and
Devlin and Gallagher went off to see
if they could find her at home on Cen-
tral Avenue. She was there.
Velda Gorcy was in her mid-twenties.
She had black hair, black eyes, a figure
that bulged in the right places, and a
throaty voice.
“Sure I know John Ristau,” she said.
“He’s a swell guy. With him it’s flowers
and taxis all the way.”
“So he’s a spender!” Devlin said.
“And how!” the girl said. “When he
goes out with a girl, money doesn’t
mean a thing to him. Spends it like
water.”
“Where does he get it?” Gallagher
asked.
The girl stared speculatively at them.
“He never told me. Say what’s all this
about?”
“He claims you had a date with him
on the night of Columbus Day,” Dev-
lin said.
“Well—yes, I did have a date with
him.”
“You sure about that?” Devlin de-
manded.
“Yes, but... ” Her voice trailed off.
“This is serious,” Devlin told her
bluntly. If you didn’t have that date,
you'd better tell us now. We'll find out.”
“Well,” the girl said uncertainly, “I
don’t know what this is all about. I
don’t want to get into trouble. Johnny
and I did have a date—but he didn’t ],
show up.”
The suspect's alibi broken, the two
officers hustled back to the station
house. Four witnesses to the slaying
had been rounded up and were waiting
to view Ristau.
The ex-con was placed in a line-up.
The four witnesses promptly picked
him out as the bandit who had gunned
down Walter Gammon Jr. .
Confronted by the evidence of the
four eye-witnesses and his broken alibi,
John Ristau broke down and, according
to the police, confessed to the ‘holdup-
murder of young Gammon. They say
he also confessed to being the bandit
who stuck up two other supermarkets
and three liquor stores in Ridgewood
in the past two months.
Following the identification, the
police say he began his confession by
saying, “I guess I can’t hold out any
longer. I might as well tell you I did
it, I was trying to get away and the kid
tried to stop me.”
The police quoted him as_ saying,
“I didn’t mean to kill him, 1 knew he
was just a kid. But I was trying to
get away and he tried to stop me. Why
did he do that? It wasn’t his money.”
He claimed that he threw the death
weapon, a .32 automatic, into Jamaica
Bay along with the black raincoat and
a 9mm. Luger which he said he had
used on other jobs. It was planned to
have divers search the bay for the gun.
John E,. Ristau was indicted for
murder and brought to trial in Queens
Supreme Court in April of 1963, and
was found guilty of first degree murder
on the 11th. The jury recommended
mercy and Justice Albert E. Bosch sent-
enced the convicted man to life im-
prisonment on April 23rd.
Editor's Note: The names Harry Halz-
mann, Vincent Flange and Velda Gorcy
are fictitious,
MURDER BY APPOINTMENT
(Continued from page 27)
moved out of a rented house on South
Chicago Street. There was also a bulle-
tin from Akron, Ohio, charging An-
thony Barr with forgery.
The Akron document cited Barr’s
record. It was as long as an octopus’
arm. He had served terms in Ohio for
armed robbery, forgery and car theft.
All this was, of course, routine to
Jones. However, the Ohio record had
a mug shot along with it and that pic-
ture strongly resembled the artist’s
drawing of Garrett, the man who had
murdered Andrew Kmiec.
Jones summoned fingerprint expert
Becker and Sergeant Harry Baker of
the Identification Bureau. They agreed
that the mug shot and the sketch drawn
by the artist were almost identical.
HEADQUARTERS DETECTIVE
Becker checked the prints on the
Akron circular, compared them with
those he had taken from Kmiec’s
abandoned Mercury. He found five
points of similarity.
HE Los Angeles officers telephoned
. Akron for a complete set of Barr’s
prints. Whén they were compared with
the Mercury prints, Becker found 21
points of similarity.
The Akron mug shot was shown to
Helen Fenley and the blonde musician.
Both were certain that this was the man
who had stolen the furs and shot An-
drew Kmiec.
Further checks with the Ohio police
revealed the fact that the name An-
thony Barr was an alias. So for that
matter was the name Garrett. The fu-
gitive’s true name was Anthony J. Zil-
bauer.
The Los Angeles officers checked the
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which Zilbauer had been accused of
removing the furniture. The landlord
who had asked for his arrest had no
idea where he was but the detectives
found the truck driver who had moved
the Zilbauer family which consisted
of the wanted Anthony, his wife and
three children. The truck driver volun-
‘| teered the information that there might
well be four children by this time. Mrs.
Zilbauer had been definitely pregnant
when they had moved from the South
Chicago Street address. .
The truck driver directed the police
to a house in the 1400 block on South
Catalina Street. However, it developed”
that the family had left this address
some three weeks before Andrew
Kmiec had been killed.
Arduous detective work dug up an-
other trucking company which had
moved the suspect from the South Cata-
lina address. The new Zilbauer home,
it developed, was at 13400 East Rose-
_crans Boulevard.
Captain Rosenberg, Lieutenant Etzel
and Sergeants Hamilton and Loureto-
vich drove up to the house and ham-
mered at the door. It was opened by a
thin woman with severely parted hair.
She said she was Geraldine Zilbauer.
“My husband’s out of town right now.
He left right after Thankgiving to look
for work. I think he’s in Trona.”
Trona is a town situated in the desert
some 200 miles away from Los Angeles.
When Captain Rosenberg appraised
Mrs. Zilbauer of the charges against
her husband she became indignant.
“He’s not a crook,” she said. “And
he’s certainly no killer..I read about
that Kmiec murder in the papers. You
must be making a mistake.”
Nevertheless, the officers were quite
certain that Zilbauer was the man for
whom they were looking. They com-
municated with the Trona police only
to learn that no one of Zilbauer’s de-
scription was in that town.
APTAIN Rosenberg ordered a thor-
ough search of the Zilbauer home
on South Catalina Street. They found
several items, two of which were par-
ticularly incriminating. One was a
mother-of-pearl cigarette case which
looked very much like the one which
the blonde musician had said had been
stolen from her. The second was a
letter addressed to Mrs. Marie Clark,
care of general delivery at Los Angeles
main post-office.
It was an endearing letter which solic-
itously inquired as to the children’s
health, hinted that its writer was in
grave trouble and it was signed Tony.
It had been written on the stationery
of an Albuquerque, New Mexico, hotel.
But it had been postmarked in St.
Louis, Missouri.
Sheriff Biscailuz and Captain Rosen-
berg were certain that the letter had
been written by Anthony Zilbauer; obvi-
ously the name Clark was an alias.
The sheriff immediately telephoned
the St. Louis police department and
spoke to Homicide Lieutenant Nicho-
las Kube. Kube promised to look for
the fugitive and to put a stake-out on
the post-office in case someone called
men heh ORR pean a IRAE oS
for mail addressed to Mr. Clark, care
of general delivery.
In the meantime the mother-of-pear]
cigarette case was shown to the blonde
musician who positively identified it as
the one stolen from. her by the man
who had robbed her of her furs.
Twenty-four hours later, a telephone
call from St. Louis apprised Sherift
Biscailuz that a letter addressed to
Tony Clark was waiting in the general
delivery box at the St. Louis postoffice.
Lieutenant Kube’s men were standing
by waiting for someone to pick up the
epistle.
On the following day, someone did.
He was a little man wearing a loud
plaid sports coat. He was unshaven
and possessed of extremely bad teeth.
He was arrested by Sergeant Gus Ernst
and taken to St. Louis police head-
quarters.
He admitted that his name was An-
thony Zilbauer and was loud in his
denials of ever having committed any
crime. He was unarmed but in his
wallet the officers found a number of
For Sale ads which had been clipped
from the classified section of both Los
Angeles and St. Louis newspapers. He
was also carrying a California driver’s
license and the registration card for a
1949 Lincoln.
Zilbauer flatly refused to tell the
police where the Lincoln was parked.
On the face of things, this seemed ridic-
ulous in an innocent man. But Zil-
bauer had his reasons as it later de-
veloped.
Obtaining the license number from
the registration card, Lieutenant Kube
flashed it to all the city’s beat police-
men. Within. an hour of Zilbauer’s
arrest the car was found parked a block
from the Statler Hotel in downtown St.
Louis. In it were found two .38 caliber
revolvers.
Under questioning, Zilbauer admitted
that the guns were his. Then he looked
the detectives blandly in the eyes and
said,. “But I never used them for any
illegal purposes. I’m a collector. I just
like to collect guns.”
Lieutenant Kube looked skeptical.
“You never knew a man called Kmiec?
It seems you left some fingerprints on
his car once. They have those prints
back in Los Angeles.”
“Kmiec?” said Zilbauer thoughtfully.
“I knew a lot of folks in L. A. It’s
possible he once gave me a ride in his
car. Quite possible.”
“The Los Angeles police ~ depart-
ment,” said Kube, “seems to think that
‘you took him for a ride, that you killed
him and stole his car.”
Anthony Zilbauer was a picture of
righteous indignation.
“Me?” he said, “A killer and a thief?
No. There’s been a terrible mistake.”
“Maybe,” said Kube: “But if you’re
guilty the mistake was made by you.
There’s a witness. A girl called Helen
Fenley.”
This appeared to worry Anthony Zil-
bauer. He had apparently forgotten
that Kmiec’s girl friend could provide
positive identification. Abruptly he stop-
ped talking and demanded to see a
lawyer.
HEADQUARTERS DETECTIVE
FTER cons
bauer wail
ings and was
fornia.
He a t
The bic N
the man wu f
bed her. Helen
bauer was the
murdered And
For a week
it out. Then f
dence against
He asked to s
“All right,”
torney S. Err
Kmiec fellow
tated. You car
gree murder c'
wanted to ste
fool my finans:
Roll was inc!
for that?”
“Well, I inte
of them but h
and I couldn’
so I pulled my
CLUE OF THE
(Continued fri
ahead and pic}
Doty’s hea
beat. That w
the time it a!
his cigarette 1)
iff’s desk, sai:
was at the ca
no po
your next far:
Doty took
on the story !
the long nig
two girls con
raining hard
They want |
which was ok
the cab and |
ue where I |
The other: J
of the Troft
where she ge
-into Bellaire.
He had b
words. They
He looked at
cutor. Their
“What the
“Then I pi
Rail who w
Warnock, w
back to Be
Duff—he's a
home to my
“How cor
your face a!
“Coming |
a flat. Chaz
and messed
HEADQUARTER
‘-y of Kmiec’s
pers an actor,
with Captain
| of the Kmiec
le. He had re-
imself Garrett.
nore hotel. He
close the deal.
necessary, he
Biltmore with
if the Cadillac
said he wasn’t
nt and that he
-der which had
rrett, the actor
ARTERS DETECTIVE
realized that the man who had called him and the Kmiec
killer was doubtless the same person.
Captain Rosenberg listened to the actor’s report and
agreed.
Helen Fenley had told the police of Garrett’s remark
about constantly reading the classified ads and buying furs,
jewelry and other articles that way. Now Capt. Rosenberg
recalled a case in the files which had occurred only four
days before Andrew Kmiec was slain.
A young blonde musician had advertised in the paper
that she had several furs for sale. She possessed a mink
coat which she offered for $950, also a six-skin Russian
sable stole.
She received an answer to the ad from a man _ whose
description fitted that of Garrett as given by Helen Fenley.
He had arrived and told the girl that he would wait until
his wife came along with a fur appraiser. After an hour he
suddenly drew a gun.
He trussed the girl up with cord and tape, picked up the
furs and a mother-of-pearl cigarette,case and took off. The
girl was released by her maid who arrived an hour or so
later. Whereupon she reported the episode to the police.
After considering the situation, the detectives decided
that not only were they dealing with a professional thief but
also with a maniac with homicidal tendencies. There was
no apparent motive for the murder of Andrew Kmiec. His
car could have been stolen without any shooting.
O* Monday morning, Kmiec’s car was found in a parking
lot on Olympic Boulevard in East Los Angeles. It had
been left there sometime on Sunday. The attendant was not
sure at exactly what time.
There were bloodstains on the rear seat.and R. W. Becker,
the Los Angeles police department’s fingerprint expert, ex-
amined it thoroughly.
When he was done he announced that he had been
unable to get enough clear impressions for comparison with
prints in the classification file. “However,” he added, “if
st. ever arrest the right man I have enough prints to convict
im.”
Sheriff Biscailuz of Los Angeles County commissioned
an artist to talk to Helen Fenley, the blonde musician and
the actor. The artist listened carefully to their descriptions
of Kmiec’s killer.
He drew several sketches. At last the three who had seen
the murderer agreed that the artist had struck a fairly good
likeness. Cuts were made and flyers were printed. They were
sent to every police station in the state.
During the next week no trace was found of Andrew
Kmiec’s killer. Then on the eighth day after the murder,
Chief Clerk Samuel Jones, a civilian employee of the
sheriff’s office, happened upon a pair of interesting items.
The Hollenbeck division of the Los Angeles police de-
partment had issued a pickup request for one Anthony
Barr who was suspected of taking some $1200 worth ol
furniture with him when he (Continued on page 51)
Handcuffed suspect claimed he was a collector of guns when questioned in murder case.
HEADQUARTERS DETECTIVE
27
- Clark, care
her-of-pear]
2 the blonde
itified it as
y the man
furs.
a telephone
sed Sheriff
dressed to
the general
s postoffice.
re standing
pick up the
meone did.
ing a loud
unshaven
bad teeth.
t Gus Ernst
olice head-
ne was An-
oud in his
imitted any
but in his
number of
een clipped
of both Los
= ers. He
driver’s
d for a
to tell the
was parked.
eemed ridic-
no. But Zil-
it later de-
imber from
enant Kube
beat police-
f Zilbauer’s
rked a block
owntown St.
) .38 caliber
ier admitted
:n he looked
he eyes and
rem for any
lector. I just
d_ skeptical.
alled Kmiec?
igerprints on
those prints
thoughtfully.
aL. A. It’s
a ride in his
lice - depart-
to think that
at you killed
a picture of
and a thief?
> mistake.”
But if you’re
ade by you.
called Helen
nony Zil-
., forgotten
ould provide
iptly he stop-
ed to see a
2TERS DETECTIVE
Bs
SERENE ee
—_—o
FTER consulting an attorney, Zil-
bauer waived extradition proceed-
ings and was shipped back to Cali-
fornia.
He arrived there early in December.
The blonde musician identified him as
the man who had tied her up and rob-
bed her. Helen Fenley swore that Zil-
bauer was the Mr. Garrett who had
murdered Andrew Kmiec.
For a week or so, Zilbauer brazened
it out. Then he decided that the evi-
dence against him was overwhelming.
He asked to see the district attorney.
“All right,” he said to District At-
torney S. Ernest Roll, “I killed that
Kmiec fellow but it wasn’t premedi-
tated. You can’t get me on a first de-
gree murder charge. It was just that 1
wanted to steal his license plates to
fool my finance company.”
Roll was incredulous. “You killed him
for that?” :
“Well, I intended to swindle him out
of them but he had the girl with him
and I couldn’t figure out how to do it
so I pulled my gun.”
“Then why did you kill him?” asked
Roll. “According to Miss Fenley, he.
offered no resistance.”
Zilbauer shrugged his shoulders. “1
don’t really know,” he said. “I guess I
just lost my head.”
The police had a different theory: If
Zilbauer had lost his head why hadn’t
he shot the girl as well as her escort?
“He could have shot me easily,” said
the girl. “But I think he had other and
worse plans for me. He grabbed at my,
belt as I jumped out of the car but I
managed to get away from him. I think
he’s an allaround thug. A thief, a mur-
dered and an attacker of women.”
Indicted for first degree murder,
Zilbauer was brought to trial and con-
victed, as charged. On March 8th, 1954,
Judge Clement Nye sentenced him to
the gas chamber. His appeal was turned
down and the machinist went to his
death in the gas chamber at San Quen-
tin.
Editor’s Note: The names Joe Barker
and Helen Fenley are fictitious.
¢
CLUE OF THE MISSING HOUR
(Continued from page 8)
ahead and pick up about eleven o’clock.”
Doty’s heart kicked out an extra
beat. That was getting pretty close to
the time it all started.. He rubbed out
his cigarette in the ashtray on the sher-
iff’s desk, said without looking up: “I
was at the cab station then.”
“Of course you were,” said Irwin, as
if he knew ali about it and there was
no point in trying to lie. “And who was
your next fare?”
Doty took a deep breath and started
on the story he had dreamed up during
the long night. “Around eleven-thirty
two girls come into the station. It was
raining hard with a lot of lightning.
They want I should take them home,
which was okay by me. So they get into
the cab and I drive out to Central Aven-
ue where I drop off one of the girls.
The other-I run out to the intersection
of the Troft Run-Neffs-Bellaire “Pike,
where she gets out. Then I come back
.into Bellaire.”
He had been listening to his own
words. They sounded all right to him.
He looked at the sheriff and the prose-
cutor. Their faces were impassive.
“What then?” asked Irwin.
“Then I picked up a fare at the Brass
Rail who wants me to haul him to
Warnock, which I do. Then I come
back to Bellaire and call it a day.
Duff—he’s another cabbie—drove me
home to my place on Indian Run.”
“How come all those scratches on
your face and chest?” asked Irwin.
“Coming back from Warnock I ‘had
a flat. Changing tires the jack slipped
and messed me up some.”
HEADQUARTERS DETECTIVE
“And you left the girl at the Troft
Run-Neffs-Bellaire crossroads?”
“That’s right.” ‘
“And you picked. up the fare for
Warnock at the Brass Rail right away?”
“That’s right.”
“And you drove back from Warnock
without stopping, except for changing
the tire?”
“That’s right.”
“How long did it take you to change
the tire?” ‘
“Maybe twenty: minutes.”
“Okay,” said Irwin pleasantly. “It
that’s your story, let’s get your cab and
drive over the runs you made last
night.” ,
Doty was given clothes and ‘shoes,
not his own. The cab he had driven the
night before was procured. Then, ‘ac-
companied by the prosecutor, the’ sher-
iff and two deputies, he started out to
retrace the runs he had made the night
before. sia,
Three hours later the party was back
in the sheriff's office. :
“How about it now?” asked Irwin.
“Want to change your story?”
“No, Why should I?” said Doty.
“Because you’re a lousy liar,” said.
Irwin. “And a lousier mathematician.
_pLook, Doty, figure it out for yourself.
We just made the runs together in
about three hours. Now take last night
and break it down.
“You picked up the girls at eleven-
thirty. It took you no more than ten
minutes to get the first girl to her home
on Central Avenue and another half
hour at the most to get the other to the
cross-roads. That makes it twelve-ten.
It took you a half hour to get back to
Bellaire and you picked up your pas-
senger at the Brass Rail at twelve-forty.
Giving you forty minutes each way,
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going to and coming from Warnock,
Smee eee
53
1e night. She screamed,
“HE’S THERE
AND HE’LL
SHOOT ME”
by CARLOS LANE
Andrew Kmiec wanted a special little piece of land in
the canyon more than a snappy cream-colored convertible
¥
' ANDREW KMIEC slid his tie knot snugly into the col-
lar’s V, crossed from the dresser and shrugged into
the jacket he slipped from the back of a chair. “This
fool setup’s got me edgy, Alec. I’d feel a lot better with
you.-along.”
“And miss the football game of the year?” Alec Milne
peered down from the window upon his roommate’s cream
convertible at the curb. “If you figure the deal’s queer, then
ditch it. -Me, I don’t see what you're selling that lovely hunk
of car for, anyhow.”
“A piece of land, son. A special little chunk of ground,
over in the canyon. The way I feel about that morsel of
real estate, when the Lord carved it out He said to Himself,
‘That’s for Andy Kmiec to build him a house on.’ I can
always get another car. But I lose that lot, I lose it for
good.”
“Well,” Milne bantered, ‘you know what they say at the
field when they trundle out a new jet for us to take up and
try to tear apart. They’ve got ten million bucks riding the
hop, but all the test jockey’s got to lose is his life.”
“I been thinking about something like that.” Kmiec’s
tone was half-joking, half-serious. “Meet me at the Bilt-
more, this guy Garrett tells me. If I like your car, it’s a cash
deal. Okay, he pays me off. Then he bumps me off. And
he takes off, with the money and the car. What does
that leave me?”
“Dum de dum dum,” Milne mocked. “This is the city.
Saturday, November 21st, 1953. I’m working the day shift,
out at the Rose Bowl. My partners are Jack and Corinne, a
couple of’swell folks. Word comes from the gridiron. UCLA
is going to pass.” Milne was at the door now, “Tonight,” he
finished, “the results of that pass. That is, if you and Dolly
turn up on schedule.”
' At a-little before 5 o’clock that afternoon, Andy Kmiec
12
She fled in terror, shots shattering the night. She sc
Terrified eyewitness to murder, Dolly McCormick, tells Sgt. Hamilton (/.) and Deputy
Rawley of her frightful ordeal. Sgt. Hamilton examines victim's bloodstained car (r.)
STORE SS ID
4 = i. —
St. eC . e A te LOYWL |
Phharahr 7SY
ark had been im-
office General
vould not be de-
| given a release
orwarded a com-
e and by air mail
er and details of
was wanted.
the women em-
sartment address
s Clark, General
ssouri, using as a
-aldine Zilbauer’s
n the Rosecrans
he envelope was
paper.
10:30 a.m., Lieu-
detectives were
Delivery window
st office.
fice door, a few
slim man, neatly
ss spectacles. He
high cheek bones
ith a veteran po-
jieutenant Kube
ark” had come to
ward the General
‘d off, approached
again veered off.
of the post office
ice carefully, even
five feet of Kube
1, and then walked
ind asked for mail
e clerk passed the
ed by Bowers and
took it, glanced
more, then bolted
s for the sidewalk,
» as he went.
men fell in behind
ily to keep within
nd detective went
curb and started
ck up the street,
d the blank paper
e seemed to hesi-
»bvious consterna-
reak into a run.
ere upon him.
’ Kube said, “we've
UW. wee
momentarily an-
en said, “Oh, thank
;eorge Barnes.”
ny Zilbauer,” Kube
r arrest. Come on.”
nto the squad car
lice headquarters.
vas wanted for the
-miec and that his
iitted she had seen
, Zilbauer breathed
ief, and said sadly:
yauer and I’ve been
: but I didn’t have
hat insurance guy’s
things, but I didn’t
for Kube. He tele-
promptly obtained
re Edward Gallardo
it for Zilbauer’s ar-
murder charge, and
St. Louis. He then
mn papers, got them
s from Sacramento,
ilton and Lovreto-
al of Sheriff Eugene
ct Attorney Ernest
return the prisoner
tion,
of the officers, Zil-
plea of innocence,
ng to return to Cali-
innocence without
nin US I ane sada nmeceiitsiaii
extradition papers. Taken before Judge
of the Court of Criminal Corrections
David Fitzgibbon, Zilbauer was given a
full explanation of his rights, following
which he amiably signed the extradition
release and prepared to accompany the
officers back to Los Angeles by plane.
Thus ended one of Los Angeles’ most
urgent, and certainly successful, man
hunts. As to the statement made by Zil-
bauer in Dolly Ann McCormick’s pres-
ence that he had been hired to kill Kmiec,
he ignored requests for an explanation,
covering himself with a continued reit-
eration of his plea of innocence.
However, as the train sped westward,
the accused ex-con began to unburden
himself to Sergeants Hamilton and Lov-
retovich. According to the officers, Zil-
bauer, calmly recalling the last moments
in Kmiec’s car, confessed: “I just wanted
to frighten the guy. But he lunged at me.
He locked one arm around my neck and
put his other hand over my glasses. We ,
struggled, and there were four shots
fired. We fell out of the car onto the road-
side. He got up and ran around the left
side. That’s the last I saw of him.
“It definitely wasn’t premeditated,”
Zilbauer claimed. “Robbery definitely
wasn’t the motive.”
The straggly-haired prisoner said he
had merely intended to gain possession
of Kmiec’s car-ownership certificate—
but, on learning that the insurance sales-
man didn’t have it with him, “... I figured
I’d pull my gun and get away.” That’s
when the struggle had taken place. .
It now depends upon a judge and jury
to determine the extent of Zilbauer’s
innocence or guilt when, in the near fu-
ture, he will be brought to trial.
Killingest Man in Texas
[Continued from page 31]
have done that; he should have known a
little more about life and women, been
around a little more, before tying him-
self down to a wife and family. But he had
met his wife while both were studying
at a state teachers’ college in Canyon.
They had fallen in love and had been mar-
ried.
Finally, when he was through building
up a case for himself, Payne asked
Marilyn, “Do you love me, Marilyn?”
The girl thought for a while. Then she
said, “I think I do, Mr. Payne. Yes, I
think I do.”
She began to cry. Why, Payne wanted
to know, was she crying?
“It would be hopeless, you and I,” she
said. “I know your wife. What would you
ever do about her? She’d never give you
a divorce.”
“She'll have to divorce me,” said Payne.
“She'll have to. A man has a right to l.ve.”
Now Marilyn brought up something
else—money. She knew, from some of the
letters that Payne dictated, and from
other letters that he received—that he
was hard presed for money. He was one
of those lawyers who handled time-con-
suming litigations that did not pay off.
He was behind on the mortgage on his
home. He owed a dentist for work on his
childrens’ teeth. He had a long-overdue
butcher bill. And so Marilyn brought up
the subject of money. How would he ar-'
range to take care of his wife and chil-
drén, assuming he got a divorce, and take
care of her, too?
“T’ll think of something,” said Payne.
Weeks passed but Payne didn’t seem
to think of anything—anything about the
future, anyway. His mind was on the
present—and on a very old subject. He
would get up from his desk and put his
arm around Marilyn. She allowed him to
kiss her, but that was as far as she would
allow him to go.
“No, no, dear,” she’d say, sneaking
away from his embrace, “not until we’re
married.”
“But,” he would protest, with that legal
mind of his, “a divorce is only a tech-
nicality. Why are you so stubborn?”
Technicality or no technicality, Marin
wasn’t entering into any pre-marriage
consummation with her boss.
Some men get sore and go away after
they have been repeatedly rebuffed ; some
grow only more anxious to achieve their
objective. A. D. Payne was one of the
latter. But, as it turned out-—and the law-
enforcement authorities were one day to
have both Payne’s and Marilyn’s sworn
agreement on the point—the more per-
sistent Payne became, the more deter-
mined Marilyn was that a kiss was as far
as he could go until he got a divorce and
married her.
One night Payne was sitting at home,
pretending he was reading the paper. But
in reality he was peering over at his wife,
who had to wear glasses for reading and
sewing and who was busy with the chil-
dren’s mending. Payne and his wife had
eften discussed their financial troubles.
And now this night, something that his
wife had once said to him flashed through
his mind. He and his wife had been driv-
ing in the family, car and were approach.
ing an unguarded railroad crossing when
they heard a train whistle in the distance.
As they drew nearer the crossing, the
train came around a bend and Payne put
on the brakes. Mrs. Payne had laughed
without humor. “That,” she had said,
“pointing to the unguarded crossing, then
at the onrushing train, “would be one
way out of our money troubles.”
And so this night, as Payne sat there
peering over his paper at his wife, that
legal mind of his began to work in a
speculative sort of way. Suppose he was
to insure his wife, say for ten thousand
dollars, with double indemnity in case of
accidental death, and then his wife
should die in an accident, why, he’d be
on easy street. He’d get twenty thou-
sand dollars in cash, more than enough
to pay off his debts and start a new life
with the blonde who was driving him half
out of his mind. Suppose, then, he were
to contrive a plan of some kind for doing
away with his wife and making it look
like an accident? Just suppose. ... In
the days that followed, Payne toyed with
thoughts of the future—a future with
this exciting blonde who sat across from
him in his office, with her pretty legs
crossed, and of a future not only free of
debts but with money in the bank—of a
future when he would not.come home of
a night, or of a week end, to a wife with
dull eyes and the smell of frying food in
-her hair.
Outwardly, A. D. Payne was the same
man when he was going about his plans
to murder his wife as he had been be-
fore the thought of such a thing had even
entered his head. He was somewhat sur-
prised at himself. He had never suspected
that he would be such a cool, calculating
customer when up to anything unethical,
let alone a plot to kill his wife.
Payne was rather clever about taking
out the insurance on his wife’s life. He
knew he would have to be. A man usually
takes out insurance on himself, so that
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ed. She was outfitted
id her every whim was
ily situation continued
then tragedy struck.
job in a political up-
was forced to move to
ussen where prices were
ss fashionable. Because
find work there, Anna,
rer life, learned what it
The family had enough
‘y carefully planted and
by the side of the one
was no money left over
ere were no more danc-
rips to the circus, no new
furnished cottage was
ig house she had known
While the parents sub-
heir lot, determined to
ir misfortune, Anna cer-
life had she been taught
i times.” But now Anna’s
nd worn after the hard
little time to spend with
confused, she thought
me way being punished.
and shocked at the pov-
o been taught to scorn.
run away. And that
She was gone for
--rents got word from
boring town to come and Miss McCormick lived in
This was no little ex- fear of this man’s return.
amily budget. That was .
12
e act—only a few months
to talk. For a period of
Anna didn’t speak to any
were obliged to take her
s in Munich and as a re-
t deeply into debt. Anna
even at that early age to
nd its expenditure very
She was making excessive
ather’s small earnings—if
pend so much on her, this
ection.
iished school, very much
-t that she was the poor-
She was forced to find
and, in that same year,
At the loss of his wife,
red a stroke and became
st of his life.
became the sole support of
impoverished father. This
out, a tragic circumstance.
a was wildly in love with
o was the son of a very
He was five years oldei
hoped to be married, but
» that his father intervened
ould not allow his son to
was already saddled with He picked his victims from the py a ay CAL., DECEMBER 11, 1953
eT gar ane newspaper ad columns; told vrlghitsbon, «Hus Ske Listed oe a
vos ove ws tat os IRs them he'd been hired to kill MeCotmic, bro Mie, esi ‘and 21, sitting
course, a mortifying ex- ’ : eside him.
girl of 16 The feeling | But Sind in the front seat of the convertible
feprived her of the love
Tene thensured in evend by BERT MURRAY with them was not laughing. His voice was lined
ame an obsession with her. continued on next page
y then that she would never
ued on page 66)
ORNS cE 2 Ao Rp 0
‘
LOOK FOR A PSYCHOPATH continued
with ice and the dashboard light made it plain he wasn’t
joking: a long-barreled gun glinted in his hand.
“This is it!” the man had said, ordering Andy to pull
up in the desolate street. “You know what I’m getting at,
don’t you?”
The handsome, well-groomed Kmiec, an insurance claims
adjuster, stared back through horn-rimmed glasses which
gave him the appearance-of a collegian. He was 32.
“I—guess so,” he managed finally. “It’s a stickup. I
haven’t much money on me—”
“Not interested in your money,” the man snapped. -
“You've got ah enemy and I’ve been hired to take care of
you.”
- “Take care of me?” the other échoed in shocked tones.
“But I don’t have any enemies. Look—you can have any-
’ thing I’ve got .. . just leave my girl and me alone.”
Kmiec: “I’ll give you anything you want, “Not interested in her, mister. Sorry she’s along.”
but leave me and my girl alone.” “But you can have the car, and I’ve got some stocks and
bonds—I’ll toss those in too. And Pll give you all the
money I can—”
“Shut up!” the man snarled. “I’m being well paid for
~ this job.” He made a gesture with the gun. “Climb out
from under the wheel and over into the back seat.” When
the order had been obeyed he turned to the wordless, terri-
fied: girl who had been sitting between the two men, her
face deathly white.
Suspect |
“You know how to drive, girlie?” Jones, |
“A—a little,” she faltered.
“Then let’s get moving. Keep going till I tell you when
|
|
to stop.”
“But where shall I go?” she asked desperately. with fri;
“Straight ahead. And not’ too fast. We're out in the itself lo.
sticks, so don’t try anything. Won't do your boyfriend “Pleas
“any good. I’m sitting right here beside you where I can thing yo
watch both of you.” » The gi
L his victir
JDOLLY ANN MCCORMICK slid along the creamy “For (
white leather seat and eased the car into motion. She ee Mahe
shivered violently, although the electric: windows were up i s\ 2
nN . and the heater was pouring out warmth. Her red coat had ;
Inside convertible, a coat, a purse ‘and a shoe. On been draped over the seat, but she dared not reach for it.
bloodstained car, fingerprints and different plates.
Her dark, tailored dress felt as Porous_as tissue paper. '
; : She had no idea of their whereabouts, although she
believed they were about 15 miles east of Los Angeles, sf
where Andy had picked up the man with whom he’d made f
an appointment to demonstrate the convertible. The man E
’ had posed as a prospective car buyer.
The girl drove mechanically, hardly aware of the
smooth feel of the wheel under her fingers, her blue eyes
fixed in horror on the dazzling shafts of light thrown out
by the headlights. :
She could think only of one thing: When would this
maniac order her-to stop?
From the darkness of the back seat came her companion’s .
-voice, pleading for his life.But each time, like a recording,
the armed man beside her replied:
_ “I’m being well paid for this job.”
Then the man was saying, “All right, sister. Here!”
She swept the white-topped 1953 cream-colored Mercury
to the side of the curbless street. Moonlit, weed-choked
open fields lay like desolation around them. The place had
a name—Painter Avenue and Lakeland Road, in South
Whittier—but she did not know that then. 7
ve Delt Me rps rs oor All she knew was that the moment had come, that a ie
t inquest, Y McCormick points out . e y ; ill. 3
District Attorney Roll se idemonnt ss maple madman was about to kill, and that she was paralyzed Actor Krev
f for sale, al,
‘ 18
F
\}
49
tinued
it plain he wasn’t
iis hand.
ring Andy to pull
nat I’m getting at,
n insurance claims
med glasses which
He was 32.
“Tt’s a stickup. I
the man snapped. ~
red to take care of
1 in shocked tones.
-you can have any-
d me alone.”
- she’s along.”
ot some stocks and
il give you all the
being well paid for
in. “Climb out
ck seat.” When
wordless, terri-
, the two men, her
till I tell you when
esperately.
We're out in the
do your boyfriend
ie you where I can
| along the creamy
car into motion. She
ic: windows were up
th. Her red coat had
red not reach for it.
as tissue paper.
bouts, although she
-ast of Los Angeles,
‘ith whom he’d made
onvertible. The man
irdly aware of the
fingers, her blue eyes
5 of light thrown out
g: When would this
came her companion’s
time, like a recording,
ht, sister. Here!”
ream-colored Mercury
Moonlit, weed-choked
m. The place had
Road, in South
n.
ont had come, that a
at she was paralyzed
Suspect’s fingerprints tallied with those on car. Sam
Jones, Lt. L. M. Jones and Deputy Wilson study them.
with fright. In another instant her heart would simply tear
itself loose, or burst.
‘““Please—” Andy Kmiec was saying. “I’ll give you any-
thing you want—”
The gunman had twisted around in the front seat, facing
his victim squarely. Now he leaned across. the seat.
“For God’s sake, please—”
Noise and flame exploded. The girl moaned in terror. A
second explosion lit up the car’s dim interior.
Then, somehow, Dolly Ann McCormick realized the
‘hiner Krouget offered car Belle Brooks ran fur ad;
for sale, almost met killer. received undesirable buyer.
Optometrists were urged to help trace owner of glasses
shown by Detectives Lovretovitch (left) and Hamilton.
cold door handle was pressing against her palm and then
she was out the door, a third shot crashing as she ran.
She. ran, screaming, as if the devil were at her back. She
stumbled once, and fell, lacerating her hands and knees.
Then she was up again.
A pair of headlights caught her running figure and a
car lurched up with a shrieking of brakes. She thought it
was the man with the gun, coming after her, and she
stopped in her tracks and put her hands to her face and
stood there, screaming.
continued on next page
Rancher Olsen heard a gunshot, saw a terrified girl run-
ning down road. He drove her to a telephone and safety.
n home, but
he would
4 taxi.
iven by Dr.
from Dolly
ii. The doc-
re than five
i by Sheriff
‘tor and the
produced a
inally agreed
int-ad slayer.
1e daily press
sheriff's men
Vest.
in the killer’s
Perrin and
McCormick
n the pottery
cifically men-
) Santa Anita.
nished check-
vere sent
factories for
ing a lead here
atory examina-
nses of his lost
he had worked
or with
shine,
while, dug from
s on 15 known
area, and for-
e's department
. establishment
.s continually as
ps on men who
“the newspapers,
ily worn glasses
ithout them.
, as the result
ind loiggring on
seneral neighbor-
( Cormick’s uncle
spects, shook her
vo others, culled
nd cleared them,
yrker, a man with
as the object of a
men.
f excitement when
‘in the tavern near
sorted that a man
threatened her hus-
thing the insurance
eper talked.
sly discounted when
irtender had move
view with the chiro-
‘ddress undoubtedly
wn to the killer.
worker was found
suspects, checked out
e was but one slim
iy Kmiec, the pros~-
.q given the name of
ieger, the actor, and
said his name was
actor, trained to
also said the man
nasal twang.
sriff’s office set to
thousands of
particular atten-
; the names
is
1e
tern
yin
ations of
Bauer.
t hope
strike
of nailing the
again. By now
+ even the Cali-
on Kmiec’s car,
had been issued
had changed hands
‘nt months. The tag had
van some time before
iv
sor
police
did not give UD.
Chief Clerk Samuel Jones, a ‘civilian em-
ploye in the sheriff’s department, was pa-
tiently studying the record cards on wanted
criminals when on Friday, six days after
the slaying, he came upon a pickup request
from the Hollenbeck division of the Los
Angeles city police for Anthony Barr, age
53, who was accused of having stolen some
$1200 worth of furniture when he moved
his family from his rented house in South
Chicago Street early in March.
Coupled with this bulletin was another
card from Akron, Ohio, citing Barr on a
bad check charge. An ex-con who had
served terms in Ohio for forgery, armed
robbery and car theft, Barr was believed
to be in California.
Jones’ attention was caught not only by
the name Barr, but by the mug shot on the
Ohio record card. He placed it alongside
a copy of the artist’s sketch of the killer,
then called in Fingerprint Expert Becker
and Sergeant Harry Baker, also of the
identification bureau.
“Like twin brothers!” Baker exclaimed.
“Let’s run a print comparison,” Becker
urged.
Five points of similarity were found by
the experts between the impressions taken
from Kmiec’s Mercury convertible and the
reproductions of Barr’s prints on the record
card.
A telephoned request to Cleveland
brought an enlarged set of Barr’s prints by
air to Los Angeles. Now the number of
points of similarity were increased to 21,
many more than enough for identification
in a courtroom.
Anthony Barr was 53, and his physical
description perfectly matched that of the
killer, as given by Miss McCormick and
Dr. Perrin. Both looked at his photograph.
The girl was positive he was the slayer of
Andy Kmiec. Dr. Perrin was “reason-
ably sure” he was the man who had called
at his office in answer to the want ad about
the doctor’s car.
At the Chicago Street address from which
he had moved in March, it was learned that
Barr had lived there with a pretty young
wife, the mother of three small boys by a
former husband. By now, the officers were
informed, she should have become a mother
again.
They set out on Barr’s trail. The Credit
Bureau in Los Angeles had a record on
him, a record almost unbelievably thick
with complaints of unpaid bills.
Through these, through utility accounts
and a telephone listing, the sleuths tracked
Barr to the 1400 block in South Catalina
Street in Los Angeles. The family had
moved from this address on October 31st,
three weeks before the murder.
In tracing Barr, the officers had learned
of his purchase of a .38-caliber revolver in
a Huntington Park gun shop in February.
They had heard, too, of his rental of tools
worth $500 and his failure to return them;
of the theft of several articles from a
motel, and of a fraud on a Los Angeles de-
partment store.
In Catalina Street Barr’s family had in-
cluded his young wife, Geraldine Marie,
her three sons and a baby daughter born
in August, and her mother and Geraldine’s
3-year-old half-sister, born of her mother’s
second marriage.
Their belongings had been moved ina
private truck—not in a moving company
van. Watching them leave, the landlord
had been sufficiently suspicious of some of
the pieces of furniture they took to note
the license number of the truck.
His suspicions were justified. They had
carted off part of the furnishings of the
place and cleaned out the electrical fix-
tures,
The truck owner, a casual acquaintance
of Barr, had kept no record of their new
address. He recalled it only as somewhere
in the Norwalk district. He offered to try
to lead the officers to the new home.
Further information from Ohio revealed
that the true name of the suspect was
Anthony J. Zilbauer. Barr, Bauer and Gil-
bauer were frequent aliases he employed.
He drove a 1949 Lincoln coupe, originally
maroon in color, now repainted black.
An hour before the cooperative truck
driver spotted Zilbauer’s new home, a small
white frame dwelling in the 13400 block
in East Rosecrans Boulevard in Norwalk, a
neighbor in that street phoned the sheriff’s
Norwalk substation to say that the sketch
of the murder suspect, printed in the
papers, strongly resembled Barr. Barr, the
neighbor added, had not been seen around
the house for several days.
Captain Rosenberg set a tight stakeout
on the Zilbauer home. On Monday evening,
with Captain Irving, Lieutenant Etzel and
Sergeants Hamilton and Lovretovich be-
hind him, Rosenberg knocked at the door.
Geraldine Zilbauer, a slim woman with
dark hair parted in the middle and drawn
tightly back over her head, said her hus:
band had left home the day before Thanks-
giving to go to Trona, in the desert 200
miles northwest of Los Angeles, to look for
work.
He could not be the crazed want-ad kill-
er, she protested. She had been shopping
with him the Saturday afternoon of the
crime, had been eating dinner with him at
around 6:30 p.m., when Andy Kmiec was
slain.
She was taken into protective custody,
and a search of the hpuse was begun.
It yielded nothing more suspicious than
a woman’s expensive mother-of-pearl cig-
arette case—until the sheriff’s men began
peering behind the draperies.
Pinned to the back of one they found
a letter, addressed to Mrs. Marie Clark,
General Delivery, at the main postoffice in
Los Angeles. It had been airmailed from
St. Louis the day before.
The missive was written on stationery
from a hotel in Albuquerque, New Mexico,
and was dated “Oklahoma City, Saturday
P.M.”
“Dearest darling,” it began. “I waited for
your call Friday at 12 your time, but no
dice. Waited till 12:30 still your time, and
figured something wrong, so I left for the
original place and will wait for some word
from you there.”
There followed three lengthy paragraphs
of repeated endearments, punctuated with
strong hints. that the author was in grave
trouble. The letter was signed with the
initial “T”.
Where was the “original place” to which
Geraldine obviously was to have sent some
communication? She would say nothing
about that, denying all knowledge of the
letter.
Sheriff Biscailuz phoned police in St.
Louis, Cleveland and Akron, the three
cities the police figured Zilbauer most
likely would choose for his hideout. Mean-
while, detectives continued to question
Geraldine Zilbauer. They also talked with
her mother, still a member of the house-
hold.
Mother and daughter described Zilbauer
quite differently. To his youthful wife, the
suspect was tender and loving, a good hus-
band and father. Her mother said he was
a brute, who frequently beat the children
and his wife.
“I threatened to leave,” the mother said.
“Geraldine asked me to stay. I said I
would only if she got rid of Tony. She
promised, but she was afraid of him.”
Of the four children and the baby, only
Mrs. Zilbauer’s oldest son, aged 9, could
understand what was going on as the police,
reporters and photographers swarmed over
the house. The boy fled to the back yard,
where he stood off newsmen and deputies
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IT'S A THRILL TO KILL_-A WOMAN
(ITD August, 1952)
Evan Charles Thomas, 30, died in the
gas chamber at San Quentin January
28th, 1953, for the murder of Nina Marie
Bice, fatally shot as she. sat’ at an out-
door hot dog stand in Los Angeles on
August 29th, 1951. During that year
six other women in the Los Angeles area
had been shot at by the “phantom
sniper.” Three of them were severely
injured. Lite
When arrested, Thomas, a former air-
man, confessed. that all of the women
except one were unknown to him. “I
just picked out a girl at random,” he
said. “When-I shot a woman, it gave
me a kick.”
Thomas had pleaded guilty to one
count of murder. and five counts of as-
sault with a. deadly weapon, His final
appeal against the death sentence was
turned down by Judge Michael J. Roche.
| “HE'S THERE AND HE'LL
SHOOT ME"
(TD March, 1954)
Young insurance adjuster Andrew
Kmiec, 32, left his Beverly Hills apart-
ment on Saturday afternoon, November
21st, 1953, to meet in Los Angeles a
prospective purchaser for his convertible.
He took along with him.a young friend,
Dolly McCormick. The middle-aged
man whom they picked up at the Bilt-
more Hotel asked Kmiec to drive to his
home in Whittier to show his wife the
car. On a lonely road the man sudden-
ly drew a gun, told Kmiec, “I’ve been
Lye Meher live by [F577
ae ’ ' ae emai
_swwneemme! ON eases published by TD
hired to kill you,” and fired three times.
Kmiec’s body was found in a clump of
bush by police led to the scene by the
terrified girl who had managed to. escape
the killer. The young man had been
shot through the face, the shoulder and
the heart.
“Detectives presently identified the
slayer as Anthony J. Zilbauer, 53, who.in
that same month had kidnaped, at-
tacked and robbed a woman who adver-~
tised a fur coat for sale. :
At this trial Zilbauer was found guilty
of the attack on‘the woman. The jury
recommended -life- imprisonment. The
same jury, four men and eight women,
found Zilbauer guilty of first-degree
murder in the death of Andrew Kmiec,
with no recommendation of mercy. On
March 8th, 1954, Judge Clement Nye
sentenced him to die in the gas chamber.
CASE HISTORY OF A
HOMICIDAL MANIAC
(TD February, 1954)
On the night of October 3rd, 1953,
Marine Sergeant Marion L. Piper, 21,
crawled to the door of a lodge in the
Tehachapi Mountains north of Los An-—
eles. He was naked, bleeding from
gashes in his head and a bullet wound’
in his chest. He said he had hitched a
ride in a Pontiac car. going toward Bak-
ersfield. Suddenly the driver slugged,
shot, robbed him and took his clothes.
Seven minutes later two State High-
way, patrolmen stopped a Pontiac on-
U. S. Highway. 99. The car and the
driver, who proved to, be John Rich-
ard Jensen, 28, were stained with blood.
When Piper’s wallet, watch and ‘dog tags
were found in the car, Jensen admitted
the murderous assault. |
From the age of 11 Dickie Jensen had
a record of arrests and termis in Juve-.
nile institutions. On August 22nd, 1939,
when he was 14, he stabbed to death
13-year-old Billy Williams. After ex-
tensive ‘examination Dickie was ad-
judged a psychopathic delinquent and.
ordered confined in a state hospital.
In May, 1951, released as rehabili-
tated, Jensen returned to his family
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“He's There and
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(Continued from page 17)
his name as Bower, asking Krueger to
bring the car to the Biltmore Hotel, where
the buyer would be waiting with cash.
Krueger agreed, but explained that he
first would have to get in touch with a
friend, who would follow him downtown
and drive the actor back home afterward.
The prospective buyer stalled off the
meeting, promising to telephone later.
However, he did not call again. It looked
as if the plan to have a car follow him
might have saved Krueger’s life.
Andrew Kmiec had been in Los Angeles
for only about ten months, coming West
from his home in East Chicago, Indiana.
He had had no enemies back home. His
uncle, the chief of police in East Chicago,
and other members of the family were sure
of that.
Milne, Dolly McCormick—whom he had
dated two or three times weekly for a
couple of months—and others of his circle
of friends in and around Los Angeles were
likewise positive that Andy had no per-
sonal foe of any kind.
It seemed highly unlikely he could have
incurred any murderous animosity in his
work of adjusting insurance claims, since
he had handled only very minor cases. His
employer described him as steady and. lik-
able.
Krueger's information dispelled the last
shred of belief that Andrew Kmiec had
died at the hands of a gunman hired to
kill him.
“The man we're after,” said Captain Irv-
ing, “is a psychopath with a lust to kill.
Possibly he has some special attachment
for cars. Plain robbery doesn’t seem the
right motive, even though he did take
Kmiec’s convertible. He left the victim’s
wallet untouched, with nearly fifty dollars
in it, and with the registration transfer slip
for the Mercury, which he could have
forged and have kept the car without too
great danger of detection.”
“The moon was full Thursday night,”
Sergeant Hamilton said. “It was nearly
full Friday and Saturday, too. He could
be a moon-mad murderer.”
Such criminals are not the creation of
fantasy. There are psychopaths who come
to regard the full moon as a symbol, who
commit acts of violence, they themselves
believe, because of lunar influences.
“Crazy or not,” Lieutenant Etzel said,
“some of the stuff he talked about on that
ride out to Whittier probably was true.”
Early Monday morning, a bartender at a
drive-in restaurant at Olympic Boulevard
and Soto Street in East Los Angeles, saw a
cream-colored Mercury convertible, with
the top raised, on the parking lot beside
the eatery as he arrived at work.
The bartender thought at once of the
murder case, but he noted that this ma-
chine bore a single California license tag,
not the Indiana plates which had been re-
ported on Kmiec’s automobile.
He was about to pass by the car when he
saw the dark streaks on the pale cream
enamel. He saw that they were blood. He
peered inside the convertible and saw more
stains on the cream leather upholstery,
Sergeants Hamilton and Lovretovich led
the descent of cops on the parked car. In
the back they found. Andy Kmiec’s second
shoe, his horn-rimmed glasses, Miss Mc-
Cormick’s purse and red coat, and a blood-
stained magazine. The coat and Magazine
4 obviously had been used to wipe blood _
from the cushions, but not all the Stains
had been removed. Some had seeped down
into the doorsill, whence it had been blown
by the wind back across the body and
fender on the left side.
R. W. Becker, fingerprint specialist, dust-
ed the car from bumper to bumper. He
came up with three impressions which, it
seemed, must have been left by the slayer,
who apparently had tried to scrub off all
his fingerprints before ditching the auto.
“Not enough prints to pick a suspect out
of the classification files,” Becker said. “But
enough to seat him in the gas chamber, if
we ever pick up the right man.”
The Mercury convertible, the sheriff’s
men learned, had been standing in the lot
since very early Sunday morning. Radio
cops had seen it, had checked out its Cali-
fornia tag and, since the license number
was not on the hot car list, had left the
auto undisturbed.
With at least 30 hours’ start, the detec-
tives knew, the killer could be far from
Los Angeles. However, for one reason, they
believed he was still around the city. Early
Monday morning the phone had rung three
times. in the home of Dolly McCormick’s
uncle. Each time there had been a gruff
male voice on the wire. Each time it said:
“Dolly, we’re going to get you!”
Hidden guards were posted outside the
residence on Hortense Street in North
Hollywood. Within its walls, lovely Dolly
Ann McCormick tried to believe the guards
would keep her safe, but the horror of her
ordeal was wearing on the nerves of the
21-year-old former coed at the University
of Arkansas.
Later on Monday police discovered that
still another man had faced the want-ad
madman. He was Dr. C. C. Perrin, a Hunt-
ington Park chiropractor who, like Andy
Kmiec and Kurt Krueger, had advertised
an automobile for sale in a newspaper
want-ad section.
The prospective buyer, a small, weaz-
ened man in his 50s, wearing thick, rimless
bifocals, had visited Dr. Perrin in his office
on Thursday afternoon. He explained that
he wanted his wife to see the doctor’s car,
and said she would be along shortly.
He sat for two hours, chatting with Dr.
Perrin about his family and his work, He.
told the doctor that he had three small
boys. He spoke of his work in the pottery
industry.
He gave his name as Bauer. After two
hours he said his wife probably hadn’t been
able to get out to Huntington Park, south
of the city, and so he would leave and re-
turn sometime later, bringing his wife.
HOLE IN THE STORY
To save her husband: from paying a
parking fine in Waco, Texas, a re-
sourceful wife sent his trousers, showing
a sizable hole in a pocket, to the
municipal judge, In an accompanying
letter she explained, "He couldn't move
the car because his key fell out through
the hole."
The judge tore up the ticket.
—Morris Bender
Dr. Perrin offered to drive him home, but
Bauer politely refused, saying he would
phone from a nearby bar for a taxi.
The description of the man given by Dr.
Perrin matched that obtained from Dolly
McCormick in all but one detail. The doc-
tor was certain he was no more than five
feet six inches tall.
An artist was commissioned by Sheriff
Biscailuz to sit with the doctor and the
girl and, guided by them, he produced a
sketch which both witnesses finally agreed
very closely resembled the want-ad slayer
The sketch was published in the daily press
and circulated to police and sheriff's men
and state cops all over the West.
The one point in common in the killer’s
conversations with both Dr. Perrin and
with Andy Kmiec and Dolly McCormick
had been his employment in the pottery
industry. The man had specifically men-
tioned the pottery plants in Santa Anita.
As the sheriff’s deputies finished check-
ing out the last of the eight patrons of the
garage in Whittier, they were sent out
again, to comb the pottery factories for
possible suspects.
They were hopeful of getting a lead here
to the murderer, for laboratory examina-
tion had shown that the lenses of his lost
bifocals were pitted, as if he had worked
on a lathe or grinding machine, or with
some gritty, abrasive material.
Police in Whittier, meanwhile, dug from
their files the record cards on 15 known
ex-convicts living in that area, and for-
warded these to the sheriff's department
for consideration.
Phones in the huge police establishment
under Sheriff Biscailuz rang continually as
private citizens offered tips on men who
resembled the sketch in the newspapers,
on men who had habitually worn glasses
but now were appearing without them.
Two men were picked up as the result
of these leads, one being found loitering on
Hortense Street in the general neighbor-
hood in which Miss McCormick’s uncle
lived.
She viewed both suspects, shook her
head. She looked at two others, culled
from the pottery works, and cleared them,
also. A third pottery worker, a man with
a prison record, still was the object of a
search by the sheriff’s men.
There was a flurry of excitement when
the wife of a bartender in the tavern near
Dr. Perrin’s office reported that a man
called at her home and threatened her hus-
band “with the same thing the insurance
man got” if the barkeeper talked.
This story was strongly discounted when
it was learned the bartender had moved
after the suspect’s interview with the chiro-
practor, and his new address undoubtedly
would have been unknown to the killer.
The ex-con pottery worker was found
and, like the earlier suspects, checked out
by Dolly McCormick.
Now, it seemed, there was but one slim
lead to follow. To Andy Kmiec, the pros-
pective auto buyer had given the name of
Garrett. To Kurt Krueger, the actor, and
to Dr. Perrin, he had said his name was
Bower or Bauer. The actor, trained to |
recognize voice traits, also said the man |
spoke with a Midwestern nasal twang. ;
Record clerks in the sheriff's office set to
work thumbing through thousands of
wanted bulletins, paying particular atten-
tion to all with variations of the names
Garrett, Bower and Bauer. ‘
This seemed the last hope of nailing the
killer before he could strike again. By now
the police had learned that even the Cali- ©
fornia license tag, found on Kmiec’s car,
EE paren... -
Sip
was worthless as a lead. It had been issued ’
on a 1936 Dodge which had changed hands |
several times in recent months. The tag had 4
been either lost or stolen some time before |
the murder. But the police did not give up. |
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with a rock. “Daddy is mean!” he yelled.
Publication of Zilbauer’s photograph,
with the announcement of a nationwide
search for him as the slayer of Andrew
Kmiec, brought a new accusation against
him and furnished the authorities with
what they came to believe might have been
the true motive for the want-ad murder.
A few days before this crime, a very
pretty blond Burbank musician placed a
want ad in the papers offering her ranch
mink coat for sale for $950 and offering
also a six-skin Russian sable stole.
A man phoned, saying he would bring
his wife to look at the furs. He arrived
alone, explaining that his wife would fol-
low with a fur appraiser. He sat with the
young woman in her living room for half
an hour, then drew a gun and ordered her
into the bedroom.
“Take the furs,” she begged him. “Take
them and go.”
He trussed her with black tape, gagged
her, then began to tear at her pajamas.
The telephone rang. He left her unmo-
lested then, but made off with the furs and
a mother-of-pearl cigarette case.
This cigarette case had been found in
the possession of Geraldine Zilbauer!
Now she admitted that Tony had come
home with the furs on November 20th.
She said she and her husband had driven
to Las Vegas and pawned one fur piece
there for $300, of which he gave her $100
in a single bill.
“You might as well tell us the whole
story,” District Attorney S. Ernest Roll
said. “We have evidence that your hus-
band drove that cream Mercury convertible
into your garage, out in Norwalk, a few
hours after the murder.”
She made a confession then, under oath,
according to Roll and the sheriff’s men. She
said Tony had come home with the blood-
stained car, had told her of killing a young
man. She added that she had ridden with
him in the Mercury when he abandoned it
and picked up his Lincoln, which he pre-
viously had left near the drive-in cafe at
Olympic and Soto.
The next morning, however, Geraldine
Zilbauer angrily repudiated her confession
and refused to admit: knowledge of her
husband’s robbery of the Burbank musi-
cian.
The stolen fur piece was found in a Las
Vegas pawnshop and, although Geraldine
now said she never had had a $100 bill in
her life, a man and wife who owned a
store near her home in Norwalk said she
had changed such a bill there only a few
hours before her arrest.
“IT love Tony,” Geraldine declared, over
and over. “I’ll ‘never testify against him.
You can’t make me,” she declared, pas-
sionately defending her mate.
News of her detention was kept a close
secret, pending developments in the search
for Tony Zilbauer. When word was flashed
from St. Louis that there was a letter with
a Los Angeles postmark, addressed to
Thomas Clark, General Delivery, in the
St. Louis main postoffice, Sheriff Biscailuz
and his detective chief, J. Gordon Bowers,
exulted in the belief that the manhunt was
near its end.
Homicide Lieutenant Nicholas Kube and
Sergeant Gus Ernst of the St. Louis force
were staked out on the postoffice when the
suspect appeared to claim his letter.
They followed him for nearly a block,
hoping he would lead them to his car, but
somehow he sensed that he was being
tailed. He whirled suddenly to catch his
shadows off guard, and found himself, in-
stead, in the firm hands of the two detec-
tives.
He made no struggle. He was unarmed.
He tried briefly to deny his identity, then
admitted he was Zilbauer.
On him was found a list of want ads
eran ae
from Los Angeles newspapers, placed by
women offering furs for sale, but Zilbauer
denied the robbery of the blond musician
in Burbank.
He claimed, also, that he knew nothing
of the murder of Andrew Kmiec. He said
he had been in Akron on November 2Ist,
but he later changed this story. He insisted,
“If it’s that lover’s lane job you're talking
about, it ain’t me.”
A “lovers lane” murder? No one had
called it that before.
Zilbauer’s words, plus the attempted as-
*sault in the Burbank robbery, led Los
Angeles County authorities to ponder
whether it had not been the presence of
young and beautiful Dolly McCormick that
motivated the slaying of Kmiec.
Had the young man turned up alone,
they were inclined to believe, the crime
might have been no worse than robbery.
The girl, perhaps, changed the whole
scheme.
“There has been a lingering question in
my mind as to how I got away,” Miss Mc-
Cormick admitted, adding that she felt sure
it was Zilbauer’s hand, and not a car door
handle, that had ripped away her belt.
“He could have shot me,” she said. “I was
behind the wheel, and he was right next to
me. But maybe he had other plans for me.
I hope I never have to face him again.”
She knew, however, that she would—
when the suspect was returned to Los An-
geles and, as seemed inevitable, brought to
trial on a charge of murder. Only then he
would not be close beside her and he would
not have a gun.
He had two guns, both .38-caliber re-
volvers, in his Lincoln when it was found,
the day after his arrest in St. Louis. Which,
if either, was the death weapon would be
known only after ballistics experts, back
on the Coast, had a chance to match test
bullets from both weapons with one of two
slugs recovered from the victim’s body.
One of these bullets was too battered to be
of use, but the other was in good condition.
The third slug never was found. A hole
in the windshield of Kmiec’s car indicated
that this pellet, piercing the young man’s
shoulder in a struggle inside the machine
as Dolly McCormick was running down the
road, went through the glass.
Returned to California, Zilbauer was
arraigned on December 16th. In his con-
fession he said he had wanted Kmiec’s car
certificate to get new license plates to fool
the finance company. Being unable to
swindle Kmiec, he pulled his gun to get out
of the car. They wrestled and he shot
Kmiec.
Whether his story, contradicting Dolly
McCormick’s, will save his skin is for the
courts to decide. oo¢
y
4
{
i
i
_. ce cmalliinastegt. Bee ; >
|
Thre
Thro
Lew 1S
The of
fusion
quick],
Thomps:
The gir)
Said. “Wait
The office
room and «
A mome
Silently har
On this,
Thompson ¢
receipt, Ma;
{ Lewis mark
didn't give
The gir]
i “How'd you
| Thompson
Our business
The girl fu;
of the pocke:
Clgarette, a;
I didn't giv,
voice. “Burt ;
He didn’t 1; iy
: “And your
§ asked. “Was
“George u
mitted He
afternoon
She explai;
gert had mar;
versity. After
cided not to ¢
the promise
the Job
ing for work ¢
ance he got fr:
Jim Lewis
Play for her fr
At first, she'd
him from pres
Jim would nor
her that ig she
Straits, to call
Phoebus. This s
ofa command ay
to haggle. She
and again on Di
“Rent was du:
George and [I ¢
his dad, but it y
Thompson tho
Come Lewis carn,
for the rent?”
The gir]
Nac
Jim's place that a:
“Jim in
Mary ?
ribed }
brunette With
nowing air.
} One Point in th,
| Interested the dete
| Taggert, Doris’ hy
| of the house on
| Jim’s visit. He
‘fooled by his
landlord. Ok
expected to 1d
there a connectio;
‘@PPearance and +),
‘hours later? -
The Missing hys}
relayed to headquar:,
description of the m
dar
ot
Wite
IV10U
vably had been mailed
ay. Likely Geraldine
reply.
ned St. Louis police,
Early the following
Louis reported that a
ter had arrived at the
“Thomas Clark,” in
i been set up in the
d.
tification photographs
air-specialed to the
line Barr was told her
and that a trap had
ind in St. Louis. She
Attorney Ernest Roll
rr had given a lengthy
‘ing her husband had
Kmiec’s slayer.
voman, in sworn testi-
nd left their Norwalk
che day of the murder,
look for a job.
into their garage be-.
and she went out to
him, but he screamed
on!”
e doors behind them.
re on and she realized
i coupe, but a white-
‘ew Mercury.
lood on his face and
n a fight.
[ shot a man.”
> Indiana license plates
‘nia plate at the rear.
ied up, then they went
he told her the details
eland Road. She asked
e it, and he gave no
rove away in the con-
eturned by bus/several
d ditched the car in a
t.
days later, he told her
‘egas and asked her to
he desert en route he
a plates. Once in Las
beautiful fur coat and,
rced her to take it into
ved $300 for it. He gave
a Norwalk on the 25th
drove away, telling her
yuis.
‘ment, Mrs. Barr was
{ receiving stolen prop-
ch the robbery of Miss
lowed the district at-
t with a disclosure. of
ence had been found in
im to Andrew Kmiec’s
tell the nature of the
fur coat pawned in Las
ss Brooks, the Burbank
ng recovered,
t. Louis post office lob-
maintained a watch on
windows, operating in
inesday, December 2—a
Detective Sergeant Gus
orporal William Murphy
iii einai
were lounging near a writing table; a few
Christmas packages were being mailed’ and
some people were purchasing stamps, but ‘the
lobby was almost empty.
Then the killer walked in!
_ The little man was wearing a greenish
grey felt hat and a light brown topcoat
over a blue suit. He had on a grey shirt and
a slipover sweater and he wasn’t wearing
glasses, but Ernst and Murphy knew that
seamed face in a flash.
They watched Barr go up to the window
and ask for “mail for Thomas Clark, please.”
The clerk stalled, evidently wondering if the
detectives knew who was at the window.
Then, before the letter could be handed him,
Barr glanced around nervously, as though
sensing trouble, turned abruptly, and headed
for the door.
The detectives followed at a discreet dis-
tance as the man turned up Market Street,
hopeful the killer would lead them to his car.
But a quarter of a block away Barr broke
into a trot and there was nothing for the two
detectives to do but to put on steam and nab
him.
The prisoner protested mildly, insisting the
arrest was a case of mistaken identity and that
his name was George Barnes.
“We know different,” Ernst told him.
At police headquarters the man dropped his
pretense and admitted he was Anthony Barr,
but he denied knowing anything about Andrew
Kmiec’s murder. :
Later that afternoon Barr's Lincoln was
located on a St. Louis street. In the trunk
compartment was found a fur- stole—Miss
Brooks,’ undoubtedly. The glove compartment
yielded something even more important—a
pair of revolvers. One was a long-barreled .38
—almost certainly the murder weapon. But
ballistics would take over from here.
Barr insisted he was guiltless and would not
fight extradition: News of the capture was
received with expressions of thankfulness in
Southern California.
Mrs. Barr repudiated all statements attrib-
uted to her and announced she still loved her
husband and would stand by him. She scoffed
at any implication that sex—the thought of
‘Miss McCormick—had needled her husband to
murderous fury. She said her husband had
voluntarily submitted to sterilization follow:
ing the recent difficult birth of her child.
But District Attorney Roll still sought a
motive. Sterilization, he knew, did not neces-
sarily impede a man’s sex drive. He was
doubtful sex was the. answer, however.
What indeed had been the motive for the
senseless tragedy on moonlit Lakeland Road?
On the night of December 4, Mrs. Barr
was released from custody: the evidence on
the stolen property charge was too flimsy, it
was felt. j
THE district attorney, meanwhile, began
assembling records relating to Geraldine’s
divorce from her previous spouse; an invalid
divorce would allow the state to put her on
the witness stand, since she would then not be
the accused man’s legal wife, and so‘ could
legally testify against him.
Whether she would consent to do so, of
course, was another matter. ‘
A murder warrant was issued for Barr,
whose true name was found to be Anthony
J. Zilbauer.
Acting as state agents, Sheriff's Sergeants
Hamilton and Lovretovich flew to St. Louis
and on December 9 took custody of the pri-
soner for return to Los Angeles. And there, two
days later, he confessed. ‘
He had answered Kmiec’s advertisement to
sell his car, he said, in order to steal it. “I
planned to drive it east,” he went: on, “ to sell
it and I asked Kmiec to hand over his wallet.
I wanted the car’s papers. He lunged at me
and I shot him. I fired two or three times, I
don’t remember how many.”
. The day before, when the train which was
bringing Zilbauer back to Los Angeles stopped
in Las Vegas, Mrs. Zilbauer was hustled aboard
by an enterprising Los Angeles newspaper man
who wanted to stage and photograph a reunion.
The whole thing flopped, however, when a rival
newspaperman tipped off Los Angeles police.
. The train carrying Zilbauer eventually got
on its way and Mrs. Zilbauer flew home.
The Devil’s Own Vinsik
continued from page 29
my wife goodnight and told her she’d better
get some sleep. I lay there looking at the
ceiling and it all seemed like a nightmare .. .
that it couldn’t be happening to me... think-
ing when I came off the ‘benny’ it wouldn’t be
true and I’d just’ have another bad head-
ache.’’)
Later Sunday Mehallick met Raymond Har-
rington, son of the man, at*the morgue. After
a long, painful léok at the murdered body the
younger Harrington said, “Yes, that’s my fa-
ther.”
“Where was he going yesterday ?,” Mehal-
lick asked after they’d walked out into the
corridor. .
’
“On his regular Saturday tour,” the son ex-
plained. “Dad used to be an engineer on the
Great Lakes boats, and when he retired he be-
gan spending a lot of his time working for
Jehovah’s Witnesses,
“When he wasn’t fussing in his garden, he’d
be passing literature out on street corners in
Conneaut, or distributing pamphlets.”
“Did he have much money with him?” Me-
hallick asked. “Any valuables?”
“No, he never carried more than 20 or 30
dollars . . . He had a watch and a diamond
ring, though.”
“A watch and’ a ring?,” the sergeant asked.
There’s nothing like that on his body—and
no remains of a wallet or money, either.” The
son frowned, and Mehallick continued, “Did
your father ever pick up hitchhikers on these
_ trips?”
“Yes, he did,”the man said. “Pretty often,
I guess. He tried to convert them. He’d
button-hole anybody who’d listen about re-.
ligion.” |
Later, Mehallick’ turned over the hitch-
hiking theory in his mind. If it were sound,
where could he search ? A hitchhiker, es-
pecially a hitchhiker with a murder to push
him, might have caught a ride a few minutes
later and be anywhere now.
(“I stayed home and I checked with the
newspapers and seen it on the front page,
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santana ie iitineaeaman
f
itening to bring it
he gagged her with
shoved into a small
loset, and with the
1, he departed. With
n-made wrist watch
-| cigarette case. She -
ntly and, from the
ned the police.
mself “Barger,” the
iid only that he was
:d.
yn of the man dif-
om that of Andrew
red short, she said—
e weighed about 145
> eyes were grey or
was heavily seamed.
ed and horny—the
retovich agreed with
uder was the same
niec and the blonde |
o be alive.
e thought to the dis-
s height and weight.
n the killer at night,
rily. .
1 Hamilton’s , sugges-
on in the papers of
There was no way of
> phantom of the ad
disclosures regarding
inger her life.
ng Miss McCormick
- her fearful ride. The
jog her memory—she
the killer to his chil-
aid, had shattered the
ision and it was now
re not without mis-
nad shown himself a
id such a man would
self-revealing tidbits—
itely false and planned
cervals, sheriff and po-
t descriptions of the
ble and -the wanted
‘hittier area was being
»f deputies. :
ive bureau the phones
) more callers reported
during the week in
is, but for one reason
.d meeting at the Bilt-
ne off.
year-old brother and a
from Indiana—as help-
y a motive.
the phone rang in the
Hollywood. It was for
urtly, “and you get the
oyfriend did. Keep your
tectives Gordon Bowers
the house and ordered
illance. In Burbank,
followed suit, posting
home.
ures were being carried
McCormick received a
told you, sister. Open
urtains !”
: | \
At 8 Monday morning, Jack Londo, a
bartender, .going to work, pulled into_ his
customary parking spot in the rear of an
East Los Angeles drive-in cafe. He paused to
admire the streamlined car parked beside his.
Then he saw the crimson stains on the left
rear fender. He peered through the window
and saw that someone had wiped a pair of
bloody hands on the seat.
“This. is one for the cops,” Londo told
himself.
a It was. It was the missing convertible.
Sheriff's men rushed to the scene.,The In-
diana plates were gone, replaced-by a lone
California plate on the rear. Inside the blood-
dyed vehicle, on the rear floor, lay Miss Mc-
Cormick’s red coat; her purse, contents un-
disturbed, and Andy Kmiec’s other shoe.
The technicians went over the car inch by
inch. The print man, Deputy Sheriff Ralph W.
Becker, found a blood-smudged thumb print
on the rear view mirror, another on the steer-
ing wheel, and a third:single print on the left
front door.
ITNESSES reported the white-topped
convertible had been there all day Sun-
day. Had the wanted man killed simply for
possession of a blood-soaked automobile for
an hour or two? ;
The California license was traced to a subur-
ban owner who was unaware the plate was
missing. Meanwhile .a sheriff’s technician had
completed a study of the slayer’s glasses, in-
cluding the prescription for each lens, and fif-
teen hundred circulars bearing the information
were now being printed for distribution to
optometrists and optical houses throughout
Southern California. :
The lenses were thick, indicating «strong
correction. The man being sought was far
sighted and, without glasses, would have diffi-
culty reading.
The left lens was newer than the right, and
both were pitted, which was _ significant:
glasses worn by a potter or machinist might
be similarly peppered. : ;
A pair of glasses, the investigators recalled
hopefully, had trapped Nathan Leopold and
Richard Loeb in the revolting Chicago kid-
nap-murder of young Bobby Franks 30 years
ago.
Planned as a “perfect” crime, one detail be-
trayed the slayers—a pair of glasses. They
were traced to Leopold, who’d dropped them.
A. canvass of Los Angeles County pottery
dealers and manufacturers had gotten under
way with opening of business Monday. The
search took in car repair shops and television
servicemen, and quickly was expanded -to in-
clude dry cleaning establishments in the belief
the killer might bring in his bloodied clothing.
Then, on Wednesday, Dr. C. C. Perrjn, a
chiropractor of suburban Huntington Park,
reported that the man in question had spent
two hours in his office early last Thursday
afternoon!
The chiropractor had invited him over
after the other expressed interest in his
advertised Cadillac. )
Introducing himself as “Mr. Bauer,” the
bespectacled seamy-faced man told a story of
wanting the car for his wife, who was ex-
pected to join him there. The man talked at
length of pottery manufacture and processes,
but his wife failed to appear. He departed
finally, saying he’d be around next day, but
neither showed up. ! ;
Dr. Perrin’s description of his caller con-
\
\
firmed Miss Brooks’ claim that the man was
short and thin. In all other respects “Mr.
Bauer” was the same individual described by
Miss McCormick.
From Mrs, Louis Lubin, 40, a well-to-do
West Hollywood resident, came a similar re-
port of having been visited by the man, also
in connection with an advertised Cadillac.
The incident had taken place last Thurs-
day morning, shortly before the call on Dr.
Pertin, evidently.
The man had discussed the car with her in
her solarium, Mrs. Lubin said, promising to
return with a cashier’s check, which he failed
to do. After the Kmiec slaying she had re-
ceived a mysterious call warning her to “keep
_ mum—don’t tell the cops anything.”
She had not associated the call with her
Thursday morning visitor until now.
A sheriff’s man was staked out near the
Lubin home.
Other than the victim, four known persons
had seen the fugitive: Miss McCormick, Miss
Brooks, Dr. Perrin and Mrs. Lubin. Guided by
them, a sheriff’s artist prepared a full-face
drawing of the bespectacled, heavily-seamed
killer and it was immediately distributed to
newspapers and California law enforcement
agencies.
Virtually every sheriff’s officer was now on
the case, either in one of the several can-
vasses, in the record bureau where thousands
of criminal files, fingerprint charts and wanted
bulletins were being scanned, or in some other
phase of the investigation—one of the largest
such operations in the history of the state.
Hundreds of tips swamped: the sheriff’s
switchboard, and each was looked into. Nu-
merous suspects were picked up, processed—
and in the end released.
A week had passed since the death of Andy
Kmiec. On thé ninth day—November 30—an
inquest was convened, with Miss McCormick
on hand under heavy guard.
At ABOUT the same time, in the sheriff's
record bureau, Samuel Jones, the chief
clerk, stubbornly continued to wade through
the monumental array of bulletins and files.
It had occurred to Jones that the killer
might unconsciously have resorted to an alias
not unlike his actual name, a not uncommon
lapse among criminals, and he had been work-
ing on the Russell Soundex files—a phonetic
system in which names sounding alike or
having sounds in common are filed together.
Now he was investigating the name “Bauer,”
the one used in the meeting with Dr. Perrin.
The Soundex listed “Bauer” under Code 600,
in which 3000 similar-sounding names of
criminals and wanted men were filed.
As Jones removed each card, he studied. the
typed description with that of Kmiec’s slayer.
The composite drawing was also before him.
He came to a card referring to'an Anthony
J. Barr, 53, of 541 South Chicago Street, East
Los Angeles. Barr was wanted. by the Los
Angeles police department for grand theft.
The descriptions matched closely and Jones
pulled, Barr’s mug picture from the files. It
was a dead ringer for the drawing of the killer.
Meanwhile, by one of those curious coin-
cidences, a clerk checking the files of gun sales
had just come to one dealing with Barr. The
latter, identified as a machinist, had purchased
a .38-caliber Colt revolver last February 24 J
from a Huntington Park dealer.
Deputy Becker, the print expert, was sum-
_ tion makes plates fit snugly without
moned and Barr’s filed fingerprints were com-
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82
pared with the three single prints obtained’
from the abandoned convertible.
They matched!
Barr’s photograph was shown to Miss Mc-
Cormick, attending the inquest on the floor
below. “That’s the man!” she said instantly.
Captain Rosenberg broke the news to De-
tective Chief Bowers and Inspector Garner _
Brown.
A call to Los Angeles police brought Barr’s
file. It showed him to be an ex-con from Ohio
State Prison where he had served ten’ years
for an Akron armed robbery and parole vio-
lation.
He had also served a year in Ohio Reforma-
tory following conviction in Cleveland, his
orjginal home, for forgery. He had also done
time for a Cleveland auto theft and check
alteration, for which he’d received 1-to-20
year concurrent sentences. He had been re-
leased in June, 1952.
The file: showed the man currently was
wanted by Akron police on a warrant charg-
ing larceny and passing bad checks. Barr pos-
sessed a string of aliases: Bauer, Yates, Gil-
bauer, Zilbauer and others.
Deputies sped to Chicago Street but the
killer had long since moved. The landlady said
her tenant, his wife and the latter’s three small
children by a former marriage had departed
on March 3. Barr, she said, backed up a
trailer to the house and filled it with $1200
worth of her furniture and valuable sanding
equipment rented from a buildings firm.
She added that Barr owned a 1949 black
Lincoln coupe and that young Mrs. Barr had
been pregnant, expecting her child in August.
AN ALL-POINTS bulletin was issued for
Tony Barr and, in an unusual move, Sher-
iff Eugene Biscailuz ordered photographs of
the fugitive and his pretty, dark-haired wife
distributed to the newspapers, together with
details of the search and a statement.
“The suspect’s identification is being re-
leased before his apprehension because,” Sher-
iff Biscailuz pointed out, “we are primarily
concerned with the public safety.
“With this suspect on the loose, I don’t dare
take any chances. I urge all citizens and law
enforcement officers to be on the alert for
this man.”
Instantly a flood of tips’ washed in from
every part of the state. Meanwhile, step by
step, deputies traced the Barrs, apparently
never stationary long, from one address to
another.
Late that afternoon the hunters were’ yt a
Los Angeles apartment house on Catalina
Street, from which the family had moved
only last October 31. According to Mrs. L. R.
Pierson, who was landlady at the time, Barr
skipped owing a rent bill and carting away
furniture and even light fixtures.
The woman said Barr often beat his wife
and that the latter lived in fear of him. Barr
also mistreated his three stepsons and was
abusive to his wife’s mother, who lived with
the family, she said.
Mrs. Barr had given birth to a daughter on
August 27.
As usual, no forwarding address had been:
left but Glen McDaniel, present landlord who
lived in the apartment at the time, told the
investigators he had been suspicious and had
directed his son to write down the license
number of the truck moving the Barrs’ be-
longings.
The deputies traced the truck to a private
mover, who had kept no records and recalled
only that he had delivered his: cargo to a
ramshackle, weatherbeaten frame house with
a picket fence somewhere in the city of Nor-
walk.
Norwalk was less than three miles south of
the scene of Andy Kmiec’s murder.
It was shortly after nightfall that Monday
when the mover, cruising with the deputies in a
search for the house, pointed it out. It was at
13417 East Rosecrans Boulevard.
Lights were aglow in a faded structure but
there was no movement. The officers ques-
tioned neighbors; Barr and his Lincoln coupe
had not been seen for several days.
In the house the deputies found his wife,
her four children, and her mother. Barr was
not there. ;
According to Geraldine Barr, her husband
had departed November 25, the day before
Thanksgiving, for'Trona, in the Mojave desert,
to look for a job.
Mrs. Barr’s mother, a dark-haired, plain
woman of 45, said she “remembered Tony
talking about getting work.”
With a guard posted and the grandmother
left to care for the children, Mrs. Barr was
taken to an outlying jail where she continued
to insist that the husband 29 years her senior
was innocent of Kmiec’s slaying.
She clung to her story—that she and Barr
had gone shopping at the approximate time of
the murder, had dinner and spent a quiet
evening.
The deputies returned to the house and
questioned Mrs. Barr’s mother.
The woman said her daughter and Barr
were married a month after the birth of the
baby, that the fugitive was:“a good provider
but very strict’—and that Geraldine feared
him, wanted to fiee from him, but didn’t dare.
“His temper was something awful,” she
said.
The officers shook down the house. In a
drawer they found Miss Brooks’ mother-of-
pearl cigaret case.
Then, in Mrs. Barr’s bedroom, they found
an envelope pinned behind a drape.
The envelope carried the return address of
an Albuquerque hotel and was postmarked St.
Louis, Mo, The postmark date was illegible.
The envelope was addressed to Mrs. Marie
Clark, General Delivery, Main Post Office,
Los Angeles, Cal.
Inside was a letter bearing the heading:
“Saturday P. M., Oklahoma City.”
It was aidressed; “Dearest Darling,”. and
obviously was from the fugitive to his wife.
The letter was signed only with the initial:
uy
T WAS a strangely tender missive, profess-
ing deepest affection for the woman and
the children who presumably feared him.
“Sorry it all had to happen so fast but you
understand, honey, don’t you?” the letter said
in part, “All my love to the kids and you my
beloved darling, I'll never love any other
woman, sweetheart, believe me. I couldn’t,
honey, my, heart is heavy as I write this:
knowing what you are going through. It won't
be for long. All my love,.sweetheart, and write
me real soon; I'll look every day. God bless
you, sweetheart, ’til we meet again. All my
love.”
A significant portion of the letter read:
. I left the original place and will wait
some word there from you.”
Was St. Louis the “original place?”
The airmail letter probably had been mailed
yesterday, arriving today. Likely Geraldine
had already airmailed a reply.
Inspector Brown phoned St. Louis police,
explaining the situation. Early the following
morning, Tuesday, St. Louis reported that a
Norwalk-postmarked letter had arrived at the
Post office addressed ‘to “Thomas Clark,” in
care of General Delivery.
A police stakeout had been set up in the
post office, St. Louis said.
Copies of Barr’s identification photographs
and fingerprints were air-specialed to the
Missouri city.
MEANWHILE Geraldine Barr was told her
secret was known and that a trap had
been laid for her husband in St. Louis. She
broke down and cried.
Hours later District Attorney Ernest Roll
announced that Mrs. Barr had given a lengthy
sworn statement disclosing her husband had
told her he was Andrew Kmiec’s slayer.
Roll said the young woman, in sworn testi-
mony, stated her husband left their Norwalk
home in midafternoon, the day of the murder,
saying he was going to look for a job.
She heard him pull into their garage be-.
tween 9 and 10 p.m. and she went out to.
switch on the light for him, but he screamed
at her: “Don’t turn it on!”
He closed the garage doors behind them.
The car’s headlights were on and she realized
it was not his Lincoln coupe, but a white-
topped convertible—a new Mercury.
Then: she saw the blood on his face and
inquired if he’d been in a fight.
“No,” he told her. “I shot a man.”
Then he removed the Indiana license plates
and attached a California plate at the rear.
In the house he cleaned up, then they went
into the bedroom and he told her the details
of the shooting on Lakeland Road. She asked
him why he had done it, and he gave no
explanation. Then he drove away in the con-
vertible and when he returned by bus/several
hours later, he said he’d ditched the car in a
Los Angeles parking lot.
On the 24th, three days later, he told her
he had to go to Las Vegas and asked her to
accompany him. In the desert en route he
tossed out the Indiana plates. Once in Las
Vegas he handed her a beautiful fur coat and,
despite her protests, forced her to take it into
a pawn shop. She received $300 for it. He ve
her some of the money.
They arrived back in Norwalk on the 25th
and the same day he drove away, telling her
he was going to St. Louis.
Following her statement, Mrs. Barr was
booked on a charge of receiving stolen prop-
erty in connection with the robbery of Miss
Brooks.
Inspector Brown followed the district at-
torney’s announcement with a disclosure. of
his own: definite evidence had been found in
. Barr’s home to tie him to Andrew Kmiec’s
slaying. He would not tell the nature of the
evidence.
Brown also said the fur coat :pawned in Las
Vegas belonged to Miss Brooks, the Burbank
musician, and was being recovered.
Meanwhile in the St. Louis post office lob-
by, police detectives maintained a watch on
the General Delivery windows, operating in
shifts.
At 10:20 a.m., Wednesday, December 2—a
cold, rainy morning—Detective Sergeant Gus
Ernst and Detective Corporal William Murphy
were loungin;
Christmas pa
some people \
lobby was aln
Then the ki
The little
grey felt hat
Over a blue si
a slipover sy
glasses, but }
seamed face ir
They watch
and ask for “;
The clerk st:
detectives kney
Then, before
Barr glanced
sensing trouble
for the door.
The detectiv
tance as the n
hopeful the kill
But a quarter
into a trot and
detectives to do
him.
The prisoner
arrest was a cas:
his name was G
“We know d:
At police heac
pretense and ad
but he denied kr
Kmiec’s murder
Later that a
located on a S)
compartment w
Brooks,’ undoub
yielded somethi
pair of revolvers
—almost certain
ballistics would t
Barr insisted h
fight extradition
received with e)
Southern Califor
Mrs. Barr rep.
uted to her and
husband and wou
See
LL
my wife goodnig:
get some sleep.
ceiling and it all
that it couldn’t be
ing when I came .
true and I’d jus
ache.” )
Later Sunday M
rington, son of the
a long, painful loo
younger Harringto
ther.”
“Where was he
lick asked after ¢
corridor.
“On his regular
plained. “Dad usc
Great Lakes boats.
gan spending a lo
Jehovah’s Witness
“When he wasn’t
be passing literatu:
Conneaut, or distri
oe -
ZILBAUER, Anthony, white, asphyx San Quentin (San Bernardino) 5=#13-1955
a « 6 — =| we wee - = — «=
COMING HOME —Stiff with fear, hill-
billy musician Henry Ford McCracken was
dragged to the San Quentin, Cal., gas cham-
ber where he was executed for the 1951 sex
slaying of ten-year-old Patricia Hull (She
Never Came Home From The Movies, Sep-
tember FRONT PAGE, 1951). He was gassed
only 13 minutes after the U. S. Court of
Appeals in San Francisco turned down a
last minute plea for stay of execution.
YOUR LIVES—Mrs. Mary Archina died
in the Denver, Col., General Hospital, the
fourth victim of a shotgun barrage, her
death leaving but one eyewitness to a quad-
ruple killing (My Bride Or Your Lives,
May FRONT PAGE, 1954). The surviving
witness is Mary’s sister, Mrs. Rose Archina,
whose husband, Frank, is in county jail
charged with the killings.
wispy slayer of insurance adjuster Andrew
J. Kmiec in a “want ad” murder plot (Look
-—PSYCHOPATH—Anthony . Zilbauer,
| For A Psychopath, March FRONT PAGE,
“I'm getting out! Let me by,
I tell you!”-
i ‘i
—Deputy—drags-the-mad-scrapper -@way.
1954), was sentenced to die in the gas
chamber at San Quentin Prison. His Los
‘Angeles, Cal., judge at the same time gave
‘Zilbauer a life term without the possibility
of parole for the kidnap-robbery of Mrs.
Belle Brooks. Photos show Zilbauer (top)
as he suddenly lunged at photographers dur-
ing his trial, screaming: “I’m getting out!
I’m getting out!” and (bottom) as he was
subdued a moment later and dragged off
to a detention room. Incident took place
during a short trial recess.
THE DEVIL’S DUE—A jury in Erie,
Pa.; ordered life imprisonment for Keith L.
Magee, in returning a first degree murder
conviction for his hitchhike slaying of 70-
year-old George Harrington (The Devil’s
6
Own Trunk, March FRONT PAGE, 1954)
Magee’s lawyer claimed the killing was a
manslaughter occurring in a fight, but the
Magee: Either deliberate or it’s robbery.
jury decided it was either deliberate or part
of a robbery—both first degree offenses.
Photo shows Magee (center) immediately
after sentencing.
NO. SALE—Glen C. Rider was found
guilty of first degree murder in Sacramento,
Cal., in the slaying of Lawrence E. Hall
(Wanna Buy A Gun? March FRONT PAGE,
1954). Judge S. J. Grover Bedeau sentenced
him to life imprisonment.
RELUCTANT END—Frederick C. Gaul
of Hamden, Conn., was sentenced to 12
to 15 years in State Prison for the killing
of Albert DeFalco in a Guilford Lakes cot-
tage (The Reluctant Bachelor, February
FRONT PAGE, 1954). Photo shows Frederick
about to enter sheriff’s car on his way to
prison. ‘ ;
YOUR MURDER—Frank Balletti, 26,
who has a wife and two children living in
San Bernardino, Cal., was sentenced to life
imprisonment by a Cincinnati, O., judge for
the murder of 23-year-old Florence Bargo
(Your Murder’s On Me, Baby, October
FRONT PAGE, 1953). Balletti had been living
with Miss Bargo as his common-law wife
and claimed that he had killed her in self-
defense when she attacked him.
MURDER SECRET—Samuel J. Horn-
beck, suspected jewel robber and confessed
bank bandit, was found guilty of slaying
Patrolman T. A. Robinson and was charged
with the murder of..LeRoy..Miller, wealthy _ :
Gulf Coast fishing camp operator (A Secret
Only Murder Could Keep, January FRONT
PAGE, 1954). In Jacksonville, Fla., Circuit
Judge Edwin L. Jones deferred passing the
mandatory death sentence so that Horn-
beck’s two court-appointed lawyers might
have time to prepare an appeal.
THE WILD ONE—Mrs. Ruth Lake, 28-
year-old mother of three children, pleaded
guilty to second degree manslaughter in the
lead pipe slaying of plumber Eddie Cook
(The Wild One, May FRONT PAGE, 1954)
and was sentenced by a Binghamton, N. ¥.,
judge to a 7% to 15 year prison term. The
sentence will be served at the State Prison
for Women at Bedford Hills.
FRIED COOK—Leon Morris Living-
ston, 25-year-old fry cook, was found guilty
of first degree murder in the knife slaying
of Reik Slierendregt, 21-year-old Dutch
immigrant girl (The Thril-Hungry Fry
Cook, January FRONT PAGE, 1954) and was
sentenced to life in the Utah State Prison.
TOUCH OF DEATH — Mrs. Diane
Welis, accused with jazz drummer Johnny
Warren of the murder of her wealthy
-husband (Death And the Midas Touch,
February FRONT PAGE, 1954), committed
suicide in a Hollywood, Cal., hotel
room. The blonde beauty was found to
have undergone an abortion prior to the
taking of 30 sleeping pills. She had been
scheduled to stand trial in a month’s time in
Fairbanks, Alaska. An unaddressed note,
found in Mrs. Wells’ room, said: “For one
thing, I am guilty too, for ever seeing War-
ren. And if Warren is guilty, one thing for
An abortion and 30 sleeping pills later.
sure 1s—Cecil, my husband, is dead. And I
must be the cause of this, one way or an-
other. D.” Photos show Mrs. Wells (top)
stepping. from a car at an Alaskan airport
on her way to California, where she planned
to stay until her trial, and detectives (bot-
tom) removing her body from her hotel.
“1S6T feung *GATLOMUEC FOVd LNO
found in the United States which were
launched by the Japanese from the Kurile
Islands. It was fitted with bomb racks
capable of carrying incendiary bombs.
While totally ineffective, they would
probably have been greatly improved had
the war lasted longer and might have
eventually caused considerable destruc-
tion and panic.
FBI agents are highly trained in bank
robbery investigation, since the funds of
most financial institutions are protected
by the Federal Deposit Insurance Cor-
poration. Of my many experiences with
this type of crime, a highlight was the
daring daylight robbery of the Peoples
Bank of Thornville, Ohio, on Nov.: 16,
1946, During the noon hour, two youth-
ful bandits forced the cashier, his assistant
and a customer to lie down on the floor
while they made off with $19,000 in cash
and $150,000 in securities and bonds. FBI
agents and I were immediately assigned
to the case. Clues were practically nil
until a-teen-age girl came to me with an
unusual tale.
ins
I happened to be on the street about
the time of the robbery. I saw a boy I
knew in school. He doesn’t live here any
more and I hadn’t seen him for a long
time,” the youngster said. “I tried to
speak to him but he deliberately ignored
me—like he didn’t want to be recognized.
It probably doesn’t mean anything, but
Bernie was such a wild one, I just can’t
help thinking that he might have had
something to do with it. The last I heard
of him, he was working at a filling station
on.East Broad Street in Columbus.”
The girl’s description of the young man
approximated closely that given to us by
the Neak employes. It looked like a good
ead.
Aided by state highway patrolmen, de-
tectives of the Columbus police depart-
ment, Sheriff Clair Butts of Perry County
and his deputies, we began a systematic
check of every service station on East
Broad Street in Columbus and by the
laborious process of elimination, we even-
tually located the place where Bernard
Howell, 23, supposedly was employed. But
the proprietor said the boy no longer
worked there.
“I think Bernie still lives around the
corner ‘at 34 South Ohio Avenue,” the
station manager said.
Minutes later we were knocking on the
door of the lad’s rooming house within
the shadow of the state highway patrol’s
headquarters. Bernie was not at home.
We set up a watch. We had a long wait.
At 4:30 a.m., Sunday morning, a car drove
up and parked in front of the ‘house. A
young man alighted. He was stopped by
officers and readily acknowledged. his
identity but denied any knowledge of
the robbery. We searched his automobile
and in the back seat found torn currency
wrappers used by banks. Confronted with
this evidence, Howell admitted his part in
the crime and named Glen Neff, 21, son
of a policeman, as his confederate.
Two hours later, we arrested Neff at
his home in suburban Grandview. He
steadfastly denied any complicity in the
hold-up. Finally, his humiliated father
asked if he might speak to his son pri-
vately. We consented and the father was
able to convince the boy that he should
tell the truth, The two boys re-enacted
the robbery for us and showed us where
they had hidden theloot in an abandoned
barn on a farm where Howell had once
worked some. five miles southeast of
Thornville. There in a canvas bag sec-
reted under straw was all but $700 of the
take and the revolver used in the robbery.
The missing portion of the money had
been used to make a down payinent on an
automobile—the vehicle in which Howell
had driven. up to the house when he was
captured. In less than 24 hours after re-
ceiving the girl’s tip, the combined efforts
of Federal, State, County and City law
enforcement agencies had solved a major
crime in dramatic rapidity. The youthful
bandits were later sentenced to long
terms in Federal penal institutions.
_ Since 1950, I feel that, with the coopera-
tion of all parties concerned, we accom-
plished a great deal in revitalizing the Co-
lumbus police department. The city is
free of gangsters and racketeers, organ-
ized vice and gambling. We modernized
the department’s equipment, secured ad-
equate salary increases for personnel and
greatly improved its morale.
We also installed I.B.M. machines in
our Record Bureau which records all
crime reports, criminal and traffic arrests
on punched cards for purposes of analysis
and information. Columbus was the first
city to install radar equipment in police
cruisers to detect violators of speed limits.
As a result, the usage of such evidence in
court to obtain convictions plus attendant
newspaper publicity, has brought about
a material decrease in speeding arrests
and traffic accidents.
We are tied in with a dozen other large
cities with a speedphoto machine which
transmits fingerprints, photographs and
other information to and from these cities
and the Federal Bureau of Investigation
in Washington. We have installed tele-
type machines which serve as a clearing
house for police information between all
major metropolitan areas. We are also
about to utilize 3-dimension crime photo-
graphs in the investigation of homicides.
One of our principal accomplishments
has been our success in outlawing race-
track wire service to bookies by tele-
phone and telegraph companies in Co-
lumbus. Using this as a basis, the Public
Utilities Commission has made the ban
state-wide, which practically eliminates
this phase of organized gambling in Ohio.
For the success attained, I cannot give
too much credit to my years with the
Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is a
wonderful training ground for young men
who wish toégive their best efforts in the
cause of good government.
- Murder By Appointment
[Continued from page 25]
and other information screaming from
the front pages of the afternoon news-
papers. An actor ‘called the police to re-
port that he, too, had had a telephone
call in reply to an ad offering a car for
sale, and his call also had come on the
preceding Saturday evening, shortly after
5—approximately an hour before Kmiec
had talked to his murderer.
The man had asked him to come to the
Biltmore Hotel, the actor continued, and
he had agreed to do so. When, however,
he had told his caller that a friend of his
would follow in another car to take him
home in the event he completed the deal,
the man grew cantankerous and replied
that he didn’t care to be high-pressured.
With that he had hung up and the actor
had not gone to the rendezvous. Asked if
the man had given a name, the informant
said the caller had mentioned one which
sounded something like Flower, or Pow-
ers, or maybe it was Bowers.
Upon being advised of this develop-
ment, Dolly Ann suddenly recalled Kmiec
telling her that the name the man had
given him over the telephone had
sounded something like Bowers. How-
ever, she said Kmiec had told her the man
had spoken indistinctly, and he had not
been certain he had.the name right.
62 raN
Once started rolling, the name snow-
balled rapidly, and so did the reports of
people who had either met personally
this diligent answerer of want ads, or
been telephoned by him in reply to such
ads. Probably the most important call of
all came from Belle Brooks, a 38-year-old
Burbank musician. She informed police
that a man answering the fugitive’s de-
scription had come to her house 10 days
before and, at the point of a gun, had
trussed her, then had robbed her of a
mink coat and a sable stole.
Miss Brooks, an attractive and articu-
late woman, explained that she had
placed an ad in a Los Angeles paper,
offering her furs for sale. The following
day, a man had telephoned her and had
made an appointment to see the items.
“He was well-dressed,” she said, “and
‘appeared to be on the harmless side.”
Miss Brooks had brought the furs into
the living room and her caller had ex-
amined them. desultorily. Then suddenly
he had drawn a pistol, forced her into the
bedroom and trussed her,
At that moment the telephone had
rung. The man went quickly to the phone,
took a knife from his pocket and cut the
line. Returning, he had taken the furs
and quickly left the house. Miss Brooks
had managed to free herself and had noti-
fied the authorities.
The sheriff’s office and the Los Angeles
police sent a description of the furs to all
points in the area and made a hasty check
of all pawnshops—without success.
Next, Dr. C. C. Perrin, a prominent
Iluntington Park chiropractor, _ tele-
phoned police headquarters to report that
a man resembling the newspaper sketch
and answering the killer’s description had
contacted him two nights before Kmiec’s
death in answer to an ad he had placed
in a Los Angeles newspaper, offering his
car for sale.
Already the situation had slotted into
the pattern of the Kmiec murder, and Dr.
Perrin was asked to come to police head-
quarters to tell his story. Facing Chief of
Detectives Bowers and Sergeant Hamil-
ton, he recited a story that convinced the
officers they had another important clue
and a valuable witness.
The would-be purchaser had come on
invitation to his Huntington Park home,
the chiropractor said, to look at the Per-
rin car, a late-model hard-top convertible
for which Perrin was asking $4,375. The
caller had been well-dressed and had
talked. glibly of the price, as if it were
easily within his fiscal range.
He then spoke of having an executive
position in a pottery works, and once
again this story fell into the Kmiec mold.
Dolly Ann McCormick had said that the
killer talked of being in the pottery busi-
ness and of how successful it was at the
moment.
“T want this car for my wife and she'll
have to see it,” the prospective buyer had
said, again following the line he had given
Kmiec. Dr. Perrin offered to take him to
meet his wife, but the man demurred,
pointing out that she w
would be in touch with
then, and Perrin obser
still broad daylight. He
‘turn later.
Shortly after 7 p.m.,
reappeared, claiming th
his wife. He further st
made arrangements to
at Perrin’s home.
For an hour he waited
chiropractor and his wi
After he’d used the t
time, he announced th:
meet his wife. Dr. Perri
him to his home, which
was in Pasadena, but h:
the house, promising tc
After he had gone, P«
he hadn’t heard the visit
When he did not retv
Perrin attempted to rec
could do no better than
reading the account of 1
in the newspapers, the
the police.
“T’d know the man a
him,” Dr. Perrin declar:
my wife.”
Now, out of the blue «
providential breaks by \
great cases and crimin
selves. Word chattered
ers’ office over the te
nouncing that the fing
the abandoned Kmiec c
of one Anthony Zilbau:
file for a gun purchase
in a Huntington Park
store in February, 1953.
The name Zilbauer im
bell. The guarded id
killer_had given Kmiec,
Dr. i’errin could well h.
syllable of the name Z
first syllable either pury
so slurred as to disgui
And the first name,
sponded to the initial Pe
to cull from the name hi:
Once a case of this
the break rapidly wide
after the receipt of the :
there came word from
that an Anthony Zilba
alias Gilbauer, had be
State penitentiary in (
years before on a gr:
growing out of the the
bile. He had been relea
months before and had
the Ohio State parole
Angeles.
On and on the damnin
The FBI cracked throug
ton with a confirmation
report, and the hunt we
of the papers forwarde.
capital revealed that A
had given his address as
lina Street in Los Ange
Inspectors, dispatche:
learned that a family cz
Bauer had lived there a:
received mail under the 1
But they had moved a
before, the landlady sa
heat, leaving the last mo
and adding insult to inj:
$1,250 worth of plumbir
tures and furniture.
The landlady could nc
‘ pected, under the circum
to what address they |
under police questionin;
the name of the drayag«
done the moving, and th
van. Now Chief Bowers
picture and found one |
a partner in the drayii
ee ee
itenced to long
nstitutions.
vith the coopera-
rned, we accom-
vitalizing the Co-
ent. The city is
icketeers, organ-
We modernized
nent, secured ad-
or personnel and
rale.
3.M. machines in
hich records all
ind traffic arrests
cposes of analysis
bus was the first
lipment in police
rs of speed limits.
i such evidence in
ns plus attendant
is brought about
speeding arrests
dozen other large
o machine which
photographs and
1 from these cities
1 of Investigation
ive installed tele-
erve as a clearing
‘ation between all
eas. We are also
‘sion crime photo-
tion of homicides.
accomplishments
n outlawing race-
bookies by tele-
companies in Co-
1 basis, the Public
yas made the ban
ctically eliminates
gambling in Ohio.
ned, I cannot give
iy years with the
estigation. It is a
und for young men
best efforts in the
nent.
“rrin, a prominent
hiropractor, tele-
rters to report that
newspaper sketch
er’s description had
hts before Kmiec’s
1 ad he had placed
spaper, offering his
on had slotted into
iec murder, and Dr.
ome to police head-
sry. Facing Chief of
id Sergeant Hamil-
that convinced the
ther important clue
S$.
haser had come on
tington Park home,
to look at the Per-
iard-top convertible
s asking $4,375. The
ll-dressed and had
price, as if it were
| range.
having an executive
y works, and once
nto the Kmiec mold.
ck had said that the
in the pottery busi-
cessful it was at the
1 my wife and she'll
rospective buyer had
the line he had given
fered to take him to
the man demurred.
pointing out that she was at a party and
would be in touch with him later. He left
then, and Perrin observed that it was
still broad daylight. He promised to re-
‘turn later.
Shortly after 7 p.m., the stranger had
reappeared, claiming that he had missed
his wife. He further stated that he had
made arrangements to have her call him
at Perrin’s home. .
For an hour he waited, talking with the
chiropractor and his wife of generalities.
After he’d used the telephone a third
time, he announced that he must go to
meet his wife. Dr. Perrin offered to drive
him to his home, which the man had said
was in Pasadena, but he refused and left
the house, promising to be back shortly.
After he had gone, Perrin recalled that
he hadn't heard the visitor’s name clearly.
When he did not return or telephone,
Perrin attempted to recall the name, but
could do no better than “A. Barr.” Upon
reading the account of the Kmiec slaying
in the newspapers, the doctor had called
the police.
“Pd know the man anywhere if I saw
him,” Dr. Perrin declared, “and so would
my wife.”
Now, out of the blue came one of those
providential breaks by which police solve
great cases and criminals betray them-
selves. Word chattered into Chief Bow-
ers’ office over the teletypewriter an-
nouncing that the fingerprints found on
the abandoned Kmiec car matched those
of one Anthony Zilbauer. They were on
file for a gun purchase permit applied for
in a Huntington Park sporting goods
store in February, 1953.
The name Zilbauer immediately rang a
bell. The guarded identifications the
killer_had given Kmiec, Miss Brooks and
Dr. V’errin could well have been the last
syllable of the name Zilbauer, with the
first syllable either purposely dropped or
so slurred as to disguise it completely.
And the first name, Anthony, corre-
sponded to the initial Perrin had managed
to cull from the name his caller had given.
Once a case of this character cracks,
the break rapidly widens. A few hours
after the receipt of the fingetprint report
there came word from Cleveland, Ohio,
that an Anthony Zilbauer, alias Bauer,
alias Gilbauer, had been sent to Ohio
State penitentiary in Columbus several
years before on a grand-theft charge
growing out of the theft of an automo-
bile. He had been released on parole 18
months before and had last reported to
the Ohio State parole board from Los
Angeles.
On and on the damning evidence rolled.
The FBI cracked through from Washing-
ton with a confirmation of the Cleveland
report, and the hunt was on. A scrutiny
of the papers forwarded from the state
capital revealed that Anthony Zilbauer
had given his address as 1417 South Cata-
lina Street in Los Angeles County.
Inspectors, dispatched to the house,
learned that a family calling themselves
Bauer had lived there and that they had
received mail under the name of Zilbauer.
But they had moved away five weeks
before, the landlady said with notable
heat, leaving the last month’s rent unpaid
and adding insult to injury by removing
$1,250 worth of plumbing and light fix-
tures and furniture.
The landlady could not have been ex-
‘ pected, under the circumstances, to know
to what address they had moved; but
under police questioning, she did recall
the name of the drayage firm which had
done the moving, and the number of the
van. Now Chief Bowers returned to the
picture and found one Lawrence Myers,
a partner in the draying company and
driver of the van which had moved the
Bauers.
A frenetic search of his records showed
that he had taken’the Bauers to Rose-
crans Avenue in the Norwalk section, ot
too far from the scene of Kmiec’s murder.
Half an hour later, a sheriff’s car con-
taining Officers Hamilton, Lovretovich,
Bowers, a driver and Myers pulled up in
front of a modest house at 13417 East
Rosecrans Boulevard in Norwalk.
The three law-enforcement officials
approached the house, observed that it
was occupied, and rang the front door
bell. The ring was answered by a small,
carelessly dressed woman, rather pretty,
with black hair drawn back from her
tired face. In appearance she might have
been 35, but actually she was only 24, the
wife of Bauer, or Zilbauer, whom she’d
married shortly after his release from the
Ohio State penitentiary.
She looked at the three men inquiringly
and her sallow face suddenly grew paler ;
but she composed herself quickly and
said, in a voice from which she obviously
was unable to drain the apprehension:
“Yes—who do you want?”
“Tm Chief Bowers from the Los An-
geles police department,” Bowers ex-
plained, “and these men are Sergeants
Hamilton and Lovretovich from the
sherift’s office. We'd like to speak to your
husband.”
“What for?” the little woman asked,
warily.
“We're trying to find out something
about an unpaid bill,” Bowers said, “and
he may be able to help us.”
“Three officers don’t come all the way
out here to collect bills,” the woman said.
“What is it you want of him?”
“All right,” Bowers said. “We want to
ask him where he was on the night of
Saturday, November 21, when a man was
murdered not far from here.”
“He don’t know nothing about that,”
the woman said, “and besides, he ain’t
here.”
“Where is he?” Hamilton asked.
“He went down to Trona (California)
to look for work,” Mrs. Bauer said, “and
I haven’t heard from him.”
The woman did not protest, as the
officers walked into the house. There
Bowers continued to question her. Mean-
while, Lovretovich strolled outside again
to talk to the people who, attracted by the
official car, had wandered onto the scene.
It didn’t take Lovretovich long to find
a neighbor eager to help the police. The
resident had, it seemed, taken a dislike to
Bauer, or Zilbauer, as soon as the latter
had moved into the neighborhood. He ob-
jected, chiefly, to the fact that Bauer al-
ways dressed extremely well, whereas
his wife and children practically wore
rags. He also found it difficult to stom-
ach the fact that Bauer seemed to be in
his 50s, while his wife was in her early
20s. Moreover, Bauer reigned as a tyrant
in the home.~
“He was always talking big about
cars,” the witness said. “How _he was
gonna get a new Cad, or a new Packard,
or maybe one of them foreign cars. Then
that Saturday night I saw him come home
with this here new Mercury convertible
and I got suspicious... .”
“Mercury convertible? On a Saturday
night?” Lovretovich repeated eagerly.
“Yeah, a kind of tan or cream-colored
job. I saw him drive it in, but it went out
the next day. and I ain’t seen it since.
Then, a couple of days later—Monday or
Tuesday—I started reading about this in-
surance guy being killed, and one of the
Bauer kids come up to my house and
asked to borrow the morning newspaper.
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Science Finds Healing Substance That
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For the first time science has found a
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stop bleeding—without surgery.
In case ‘after case, pain was relieved
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pain, actual reduction (shrinkage) took
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Most amazing of all—results were so
thorough that sufferers made astonishing
statements like “Piles have ceased to be
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The secret is a new healing substance
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Now this new healing substance is
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C.O.D.’s $1.46.
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WHAT HAPPENED am
TO THAT PINT OF am
BLOOD YOU WERE
GOING TO GIVE?
Call your Red Cross, Armed
Forces or Blood Donor
Center today!
A as mR os eemea eens a
At that point I knew there was. some-
thing fishy.”
“Well, if you figured this man was the
murderer, why didn’t you call the po-
lice?” Lovretovich asked. The inform-
ant’s reply could well become a classic
entry in the Book of Murder Revelations.
“Tl tell you why, Mister,” he said.
“Once I had a guy give me a bum check
and I found out it was bad and I stalled
him until I could get the police and tell
them to come and grab him. Then I went
back and stalled him some more—and
when do you think the police finally got
there?”
“Well,” Lovretovich said, “they don’t
always have men handy right away, so
it might have taken them an hour or
so... .”
“An hour, he says,” roared the man.
“Mister, they got there 10 days later, and
since then I figured it don’t do any good
to call the police.”
Lovretovich now returned to give his
information quietly to Bowers and Ham-
ilton, Confronted with this, Geraldine
Zilbauer broke and admitted having seen
the convertible in the garage. She further
revealed that her husband had taken it
away on Sunday and had returned with-
out it. She also admitted that he had
stolen the furs from Miss Brooks and
that she had driven with him. to Las
Vegas on November 24, where he had
sold them for $200. He then drove her
home, she said, and left, saying he was
going to look for work.
“But he didn’t tell me he had killed
anybody,” she sobbed, “and I know he
didn’t or he would have told me. He was
a good man and a good husband and he
always told me everything.” .
Bowers’ asked her to accompany him
to the Pasadena jail to be held for safety;
leaving Sergeants Lovretovich and Ham-
ilton to make a search of the house, A
few minutes later, Lovretovich found a
letter, pinned behind a window drape, ad-
dressed to Mrs. Marie Clark, General De-
livery, Los Angeles.
It was an endearing letter, obviously
intended for Mrs. Zilbauer, beginning
with a sentiment scarcely consistent with
the informant’s description of the Bauer
family relations. “Dearest Darling,” it
read, and continued in an impassioned,
and often alarmed, outpouring of devo-
tion. It ended with a reference to the
writer’s hope to hear from her “at the
original place,” and was signed only with
the letter T. Investigation had shown
that Zilbauer often. used the alias
“Thomas Bauer.”
The letter, penned on Stationery from
an Albuquerque, New Mexico, hotel, ap-
parently had been written in Oklahoma
City but was postmarked St. Louis, Mis-
souri.
Back at police headquarters, Chief
Bowers put through a long-distance tele-
phone call to Lieutenant Nicholas Kube
of the Homicide Detail of the St. Louis
police department, asking that the Gen-
eral Delivery window at the St. Louis
post office be staked out and that a check
be made for any mail addressed to
Thomas Clark.
An hour later, Kube returned the call.
TRUE POLICE CASES
———__
— |
“Every time we have strawberries for dessert, I break out.”
A letter addressed to Clark had been im-
pounded at the post office General
Delivery window and would not be de-
livered to anybody until given a release
by Kubé. Bowers now forwarded a com-
plete description, by wire and by air mail
special delivery, of Bauer and details of
the crime for which he was wanted.
Next, he had one of the women em-
ployes of the police department address
an envelope to Thomas Clark, General
Delivery, St. Louis, Missouri, using as a
guide, a sample of Geraldine Zilbauer’s
handwriting taken from the Rosecrans
Avenue house. Inside the envelope was
placed a sheet of blank paper.
On October 3, 1953, at 10:30 a.m., Lieu-
tenant Kube and two detectives were
staking out the General Delivery window
in the St. Louis main post office.
Through the post office door, a few
minutes later, came a slim man, neatly
dressed, wearing rimless spectacles. He
had a thin, beaked nose, high cheek bones
and sunken cheeks. With a veteran po-
liceman’s intuition, Lieutenant Kube
knew that “Thomas Clark” had come to
claim his mail.
The man went toward the General
Delivery window, veered off, approached
the window again, and again veered off.
He walked the length of the post office
foyer, searched every face carefully, even
' to approaching within five feet of Kube
and peering hard at him, and then walked
boldly to the window and asked for mail
for Thomas Clark. :
Through the bars, the clerk passed the
envelope recently mailed by Bowers and
Hamilton, The man took it, glanced
around nervously once more, then bolted
with long, tense strides for the sidewalk,
tearing at the envelope as he went.
Kube and one of his men fell in behind
the man, walking rapidly to keep within
reach of him. The second detective went
to a squad car at the curb and started
the motor. Half a block up the street,
the man had extracted the blank paper
from the envelope. He seemed to hesi-
tate, glanced at it in obvious consterna-
tion, then started to break into a run,
Kube and his aide were upon him.
“All right, Zilbauer,” Kube said, “we've
got other news for you... .”
Zilbauer, or Bauer, momentarily an-
swered to the name, then said, “Oh, thank
you, but my name is George Barnes.”
“Your name’s Anthony Zilbauer,” Kube
said, “and you’re under arrest. Come on,”
They pushed him into the squad car
and took him to police headquarters.
There, told that he was wanted for the
murder of Andrew Kmiec and that his
wife had already admitted she had seen
him with Kmiec’s car, Zilbauer breathed
a sigh, perhaps of relief, and said sadly:
“All right, I am Zilbauer and I’ve been
in trouble all my life; but I didn’t have
anything to do with that insurance guy’s
killing. I stole some things, but I didn’t
kill anybody.”
’ This was enough for Kube. He tele-
phoned Bowers, who promptly obtained
from Municipal Judge Edward Gallardo
of Whittier a warrant for Zilbauer’s ar-
rest on a first-degree murder charge, and
forwarded a copy to St. Louis. He then
applied for extradition papers, got ‘them
back within 24 hours from Sacramento,
and dispatched Hamilton and Lovreto-
vich (with the approval of Sheriff Eugene
Biscailuz and District Attorney Ernest
Roll) to St. Louis to return the prisoner
to California jurisdiction.
Upon the arrival of the officers, Zil-
bauer reiterated his plea of. innocence,
but said he was willing to return to Cali-
fornia to prove his innocence without
hermes
extradition papers. ”
of the Court of C
David Fitzgibbon, Z
full explanation of }
which he amiably sig
release and prepared
officers back to Los .
Thus ended one of
urgent, and certain
hunts. As to the stat:
bauer in Dolly Ann
ence that he had been
he ignored requests
covering himself wit
eration of his plea o1
However, as the tr
the accused ex-con
himself to Sergeants
retovich. According 1
bauer, calmly recallin
in Kmiec’s car, confes
Killingest Mz
[Continued fro
have done that; he sh
little more about life
around a little more,
self down toa wife anc
met his wife while b.
at a state teachers’ «
They had fallen in love
ried.
Finally, when he wa
up a case for hims
Marilyn, “Do you lov:
The girl thought for
said, “I think I do, \
think I do.”
She began to cry. W
to know, was she cryir
“It would be hopeles
said. “I know your wife
ever do about her? Sh:
a divorce.”
“She'll have to divorc
“She'll have to. A man |
Now Marilyn broug
else—money. She knew
letters that Payne dij
other letters that he
was hard presed for m:
of those lawyers who }
suming litigations that
He was behind on the
home. He owed a denti:
childrens’ teeth. He ha
butcher bill. And so M:
the subject of money. |
range to take care of |
drén, assuming he got a
care of her, too?
“PH think of someth
Weeks passed but P:
to think of anything—a:
future, anyway. His m
present—and on a very
would get up from his
arm around Marilyn. Sh
kiss her, but that was as
allow him to go,
“No, no, dear,” she’
away from his embrace.
married.”
“But,” he would protes
mind of his, “a divorce
nicality. Why are you s
Technicality or no tech
wasn’t entering into a1
consummation with her b
Some men get sore an
they have been repeated]:
grow only more anxious
objective. A. D. Payne
latter. But, as it turned o
ppealing figure as she
aturday night that had
0 tragically in violent
a party three months
h other regularly ever
lanned to have dinner
at the home of some
old her that he had to
buying Kmiec’s 1953
him up in front of the
geles,
‘g a dark brown sport
‘y arrived in front of
ie in sight so attired.
e second time around,
.cket had hailed them
on who had contacted
be petulant, and had
es late. Also, the man
ecause she was in’ the
if she intended to go
it he saw no reason
z.
‘ell-dressed; as some-
lender ; with thinning
es and hollow cheeks.
imilar to those found
s height at around 5
somewhere afound
hey had taken.
an were beginning to
. Y 2
~ » wt)
SN
Wife of suspected slayer weeps as
she tells Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz that
her husband is innocent of crime.
«
be uneasy, the young man complied with the stranger’s
request that Kmiec get in the back seat to discuss the sale
of the car while the young woman took the wheel. The man
told her to drive out to Painter Avenue and then into
Lakeland Lane. During that time he talked somewhat
frenziedly about his wife and his children, but appeared to
be making no progress in the discussion of the purchasé of
the car,
They had been driving along Lakeland for about a
quarter of a mile, very slowly, when the stranger ordered
Dolly Ann to stop near a clump of trees. At this point
Kmiec mentioned to the stranger, for the third time, that
he had not quite caught his name. The man muttered some-
thing about there being plenty of time for that later. Then
suddenly he asked, “You don’t know what my name is, eh?”
Kmiec replied that he didn’t. Without further word, the ©
man pulled a pistol from his pocket and aimed it at Kmiec.
“IT guess you know what this is, don’t you?”
Obviously thinking it was a hold-up, Kmiec at once
offered the man all the money he had with him and the
car, if he would not harm him or Miss McCormick.
“I don’t want money,” was the gunman’s odd reply.’
“You’ve got enemies who are paying me to kill you.”
Appalled, Kmiec and Dolly Ann tried in vain to con-
vince the sinister intruder that he was mistaken.
“Oh, but you have got enemies, Mister, and You know
who they are, too.”
Kmiec moved as if to get out of the car, A deafening
explosion slammed against the quickly fallen night, and
Kmiec’s body slumped forward. There was another tex-
plosion, and the stricken man’s body jumped convulsively
on the floor of the car.
Dolly Ann, with an agility she had not known she pos-
sessed, threw open the car door and leaped out. Some
thing caught the belt of her dress, but with superhuman
strength she ripped loose and ran down the lane toward
Painter Avenue.
She heard two more shots fired, and simultaneously
bullets struck the pavement near her. Then the shots
ceased and she ran on to Painter Avenue and hailed Olsen,
who took her to the telephone.
Dolly Ann told the police she was certain that Kmiec
had not had any deadly enemies. She and Kmiec had become
very close friends during their acquaintance, and he had
told her of his boyhood days, his army service, and of how
he had studied while in the army so that, upon his dis-
charge, he could quit his old trade as a roofer to enter the
Calls Koma
Sergeants Ned Lovretovich and Norman Hamil-
ton examine spectacles found at murder scene.
With only a few clues, officers solved the case.
insurance field. She said, too, that she had met many of
his friends; there had been nothing in their behavior
‘toward him to indicate that he had ever been anything but
universally liked.
As Dolly Ann told her story, a Los Angeles police de-
partment artist made a sketch from her detailed description
of the killer, ,
At the same time, a description of the spectacles found
at the murder scene, together with a breakdown of the lens
prescription, was prepared and this, with the sketch.
appeared in the afternoon newspapers on the following
Monday, November 23..
In the meantime, Jack Londo, a bartender in a south-
west Los Angeles saloon, arrived-on duty at 8 o’clock on
Monday morning and found a tan, or cream-colored, 1953
Mercury convertible parked in the lot adjoining the saloon.
It had not been there the night before; it was the only car
in the lot and it belonged to no one Londo knew. Since he
was acquainted with all the customers using the small lot,
he decided to investigate.
Approaching the car, he noticed a brownish-red substance
on the panel behind the right-hand door. To him, it re-
sembled blood and looked as if it had been splashed on the
car from the inside when the door was slammed. He noticed
a hand print in the discoloration. He looked inside the car
and observed that the light tan leather upholstery was
smeared with blood. He found a bloodstained magazine and
a woman’s red coat in the back seat.
Londo hurried into the bar and called the sheriff’s office.
A tow car and two men were sent to pick up the car, and
Sergeant Ned Lovretovich questioned Londo briefly. Back
at Los Angeles police headquarters, to which the car was
towed, fingerprint men soon lifted a set of prints from the
side of the car and, within an hour, they: had. shot copies
to the California Bureau of Investigation and Identifica-
tion in Sacramento and to FBI hea quarters in Washing-
ton. :
It was established that the car was the one owned by
Kmiec, in which the killer had made his getaway. The
woman’s coat was identified by Dolly Annas one she had
put there on the fatal night. Also determined was the fact
that Kmiec’s original license plates, issued in Indiana, had
been. removed from the car and California plates sub-
stituted. A quick check traced the plates to their owner,
who said that they had been stolen from his car.
Now there came a series of excited reactions to the story
of Kmiec’s death, the sketch [Continued on page 62]
S
be in the Health Department building
and the post office.” ;
_ “The problem is to freeze them,” an
FBI agent declared. “If they get rat-
tled and start shooting, no matter how
somebody is likely to get killed.”
Detective Lieutenant B. J. Handlon,
ewho had been called in on the confer-
ence, suggested: “We could use an
armored truck to follow Schomer into
«the alley and bottle it up from that
=. end.”
=. “It still wouldn’t freeze them.”
> “What would?”
The agent suggested that a loud-
the bandits stepped out,
‘police car was stopped, the loudspeaker
were or be killed.
“That would give the men in the
a chance,” he said. “They can slide
down to the floor and use the car for
protection.” .
»“We could use portable floodlights,
.” Kennedy said. “Those and the
dspeakers should hold them.”
The police plans called for detectives
to intercept Robert. Anderson as he
‘drove around the post-office building.
-Other officers would pick up Joyce An-
the animal shelter.
, And a cordon of police cars would be
placed entirely around the area, re-
ceiving instructions from. the police
~-+y room. The _ sheriff’s officers
d cover all of the roads out of the
in the event of any slioup.
‘ou've thought of everything ex-
geepe Ed,” Newcomb said as the final
, Plans were discussed. “It looks to me
‘like he’s the sitting duck in a shooting
<gallery.”
ike an FBI agent told Meagher:
= * “As soon as the lights go.on and
sthe loudspeaker starts, fall flat. Dive
under the car if you can. In that way,
if there’s any shooting, we won’t stand
the risk of hitting you.”
“No good,” Newcomb said flatly.
“No? Why not?”
“Mayhe our men won’t shoot him,
how about Ludwig or Anderson?
en they see they’ve been framed,
of them might swing: and let Ed
have it. With a shotgun at that close
ge, he’d be finished.” .
“What do you think?” Meagher was
ed ,
» “I don’t know.”
~“Could you swap places with Bob
derson or Schomer?”
—“Not.a.chance...Anderson insisted on
tting Bob in the safest spot because
’s his kid brother. Bob's only nine-
teen. Schomer is in the car because he
could get away with looking like a
oman. Besides, it’s Anderson's idea
Pbecause he, Ludwig and I have been
be officers, we know how to handle
gun.
“You're going to be in a tough spot.
‘T.guess you know that. Our men will
be instructed to watch out for you.”
“With all of them wearing full
masks?” Newcomb asked.
they going to tell Ed from Anderson or
Ludwig?”
*. “He'll have to drop.”
+ “Suppose they all drop and start
shooting? And that’s only half of it.
He's got Anderson and Ludwig to worry
-about at the same time.”
- An FBI agent told Meagher: “You
idon’t have to go through with it, but I
“doubt if you pulled out now whether
sthey'd go on. We could pick them up
;but we'd have trouble getting a con-
iWiction. All they’d have to do is deny
4your story.”
i'm not pulling out,” Meagher said.
““Tait a minute!” Newcomb cried.
tare you feeling, Ed?”
that do you mean?” .
appose you got sick late Tuesday
mivernoon and had to be rushed to
hospital, Would they go through
jit) without you?” : !
don't know. Anderson figures’ I’m
many men you have around them, -
yellow now. He might think I chick-
ened out.”
‘ “Well, that’s the way it’s going to
be,” Newcomb said. “Ed’s done more
than his share on this deal. I won't
let him get killed. Tuesday afternoon,
he's going to the hospital with a rup-
tured appendix.”
W ITH the utmost secrecy, the
Police plans were carried out to
foil the million-dollar robbery. FBI
agents dressed as workmen went into
the Wildcat Lair building. -They care-
fully selected the site where the police
officers could cover best what would
take place below.
tend the party because of an emer-
gency operation. The message was
telephoned by a hospital employe so
that Anderson would be unable to
question Meagher Also, if Anderson
should call back he would find that
.Meagher actually was in the hospital.
Would he believe Meagher was sick?
Would he think Meagher had chick-
ened out?
Or, would he suspect a trap?
Only time would tell, And as the
minutes. ticked -by, the anxiety and
tenseness grew among the officers in on
the counter-plot. 4
The deal almost blew up when a
Police officer who had not been informed
‘could order them to stand where they .
derson where she would be waiting, at :
The loudspeaker and lights were in-
of what was taking place, chose that
Up to the Minute
TR once lovely Barbara Graham, mother of three, former shop-
lifter, dope peddler, prostitute and gun girl, has gone to her
death peacefully in California’s gas chamber.
Wearing a cocktail dress, Mrs. Graham entered the gas cham- .
ber calmly and eight minutes later was pronounced dead, executed
for her part in.the pistol-whipping slaying of an elderly widow,
Mrs. Mabel Monohan who, her killers falsely believed, had $100,000
hidden in her Burbank, California, home.
Following Mrs. Graham in death by 20 minutes were one of
California’s most vicious badmen, Jack Santo, and his sidekick, :
Emmett Perkins. Besides helping to slay Mrs. Monohan, Santo and
Perkins had killed Grocer Guard Young and three little children
in another attempted robbery, and gold miner Edmund Hansen—a
total of six that police knew about. :
The story of the detective investigation into Mrs. Monohan’s
murder, “‘The Mystery of Mabel Monohan”, appeared in the August,
1953, issue of OFFICIAL DETECTIVE STORIES Magazine, and
bod of the Guard Young case, “Massacre on the Chester Logging
p executed recently were: . yc
Anthony Zilbauer, who answered an advertisement for an auto
- for sale in Los Angeles and killed the man who wanted to sell it,
coguniee (“He Said He Was Hired to Kill”, February, 1954,
near Barstow, California, in 1952 (“Catch the Killer in Sheep's
Clothing”, June, 1953, OFFICIAL) ;
Grover Edwards, robber-slayer of a former neighbor, Isaac
’ Teitelbaum, in Philadelphia (“Why Must You Kill Me?”, OFFICIAL,
November, 1952).
In New York, William Farrell, accused of slaying co-ed Ann
Yarrow, was sent toa hospital for the criminally insane. The story
of his capture, “Greenwich Village’s Case of Ann Yarrow”, appeared
in the May, 1955, OFFICIAL DETECTIVE STORIES.
And in Wilson, North Carolina, Mrs. John Cockrell was
sentenced to a twelve-to-fifteen-year term for poisoning her hus-
band. A daughter of the couple, Mrs. Lucille Barnes, wrote the dra-
matic story of her suspicions when her father died and of her own .
investigation which eventually led to the arrest of her mother, under
the title, “Help Me Find My Father's Killer”, for the March, 1955,
. OFFICIAL DETECTIVE STORIES.
~ ‘This department, “Up to the Minute”, is published regularly
on these pages to give readers the last word on cases which have
been published prior to the long-drawn-out legal maneuvers that
frequently delay final disposition of those cases.
7
‘\and most of the boys are just like them.
RIGHT on schedule, at eight o’clock,
“How are .
stalled. Walkie-talkie connections
were. made with Headquarters so that
instructions could be relayed to the
waiting police cars. ‘
Complete descriptions of all the
persons involved, as well as the descrip-
tions and license numbers of the cars
that would be used were prepared.
To avoid any possible leak, only the
key officers in the sheriff’s office and
on the police force were informed of
what was taking place. The men in the
cruiser cars would not know of their
assignments until the last moment.
This would be the biggest robbery
since the Brink’s job in Boston. There
couldn’t be any mistakes. .
Postal inspectors and FBI agents
took up key positions to help command’
and execute the capture of the bandits.
The one big question was whether
the gang would go through with the
plan without Meagher.
A rendezvous of the gang had been
set for Anderson’s Paradise Valley
home at six o'clock. It was to arrange
the alibi—that Anderson was giving a
party for his wife.
The robbery was planned for eight
o'clock, . , . : ;
.Word was sent from the ' hospital
. ‘that’ Meagher would be unable to at- -
-police car with the mail.
particular afternoon to pay ‘a friendly
visit to Anderson’s home. But he left
after a few minutes without incident.
At six o’clock, Chief Kennedy made
a final inspecticn of the men and equip-.
ment that would be used.
Detective Lieutenant Handlon and
Detective Frank Jergovic were assigned
the job of stopping Bob Anderson after
he had given the signal that would set
the holdup in action. Sergeant John,
Skelton was to drive the armored car
that had been hidden in a garage where
it could move out quickly and follow
Schomer when he went in to block the
Several
officers would be inside ready to shoot
through the port holes of the armored
vehicle. .
Chief Kennedy and Lieutenant Allen
would follow the armored car in a
police cruiser. Several men had tried
to dissuade the Chief from coming in
behind the armored car for he would
be in the thick of any shooting, but the
Chief was adamant on. this point. . -
IX THE Wildcat Lair building, the
Health Department building and
the post office, 22 selected men from,
the police department, sheriff’s' office, ‘
Postal inspectors and‘ FBI were’ sta-' '
tioned. Guns were loaded with live
shells under the firing-pins. The loud-
speaker and floodlights were ready.
More officers were hidden at the
animal shelter where they would pick
up Joyce Anderson.
Then word flashed through to Head-
quarters from a _ walkie-talkie unit
planted near the Anderson home.
“George Anderson and his wife just
got into their car.”
A few minutes later, another message
came in: | :
“Robert Schomer is leaving. He’s in
his car.”
The plan was on.
This was it.
An alert was flashed to all police
units.
Chief Kennedy was at the station as
‘Carlisle and Devlin prepared to leave
for what, until tonight, had been a
routine assignment to take the regis-
_tered. mail to the train.
Tonight it could be a death run.
The patrolmen inspected their guns
‘ foe
and Chief Kennedy shook their hands.
“Watch yourselves and keep down,”
he said. “No matter what happens, you
fellows keep down and stay inside the
car until the shooting is over. If they
make a fight for it, a lot of lead will be
flying and you fellows will be right in
the middle of it.” :
As the patrolmen walked out to their
waiting car, Chief Kennedy called:
“Good luck, and God bless you.”
Turning to Bell, Chief Kennedy said
_in a choked voice: “You get a couple
of rotten apples on a Force and some-
times you almost lose faith.
“Then something like this comes up’
and you see men like Carlisle and Dev-
lin. Those boys could get killed tonight,
and they know it. But you watched
them go out of here.’ Both of them were
smiling. They’re real police officers—
hey more than make-up for the bad
ones.” ‘ .
. Bell looked at his watch. “It’s time
to go.”
S
the post-office messenger came out
on the platform with the registered
mail sack. He climbed into the car with
Carlisle and Devlin. :
An auto parked on Mesquite flashed
its lights on and moved slowly around
the post office.
It was the signal, °
As the car rounded the corner,’
Handlon jammed the throttle of his
police cruiser to the floorboard. He
swung wide and then pulled in sharp,
cutting off the auto that had given the
signal and forcing it into the curb.
Jergovic was out in a flash. He
pressed his service revolver against the
head of the driver. ‘
“Don’t.move a muscle or I'll drill
you.”
George Anderson was at the wheel.
Beside him was his wife. Meagher had
said that Anderson’s brother, Bob,
would be driving the car and Mrs.
Anderson at the animal shelter. Some-
' thing was wrong. .
“Get out with your hands up,” Jergo-
vic ordered. “You, too, Mrs. Ander-
son.” ;
Handlon relieved Anderson of the
police pistol he carried.
“What’s the idea?” Anderson asked.
“Me and my wife were on the way to
the show.” . .
“You'll see a show when you meet
the Chief,” Jergovic told him. “And
don’t give me any trouble.”
In the meantime, the officers who
had been waiting on the west side of
the post office saw the patrol car with
the mail truck drive off to the station,
no attempt being made to stop it. How-
ever, Chief Kennedy and Allen spotted
Schomer as he drove away after observ-
ing the patrol car. ‘They placed him
under arrest. .
, Officers sped out to Anderson’s home .
where they located Robert Anderson
and Walter Ludwig. The police claim
they also found the sawed-off shot-
guns and. masks.and make-up to dis-
> gh a tg od as a woman at the Para-
‘Valley house.,;, . t ee er
' Later in the evening, Chief Kennédy j | |
announced that Schomer had given the ¢ '
45
ZILBAUER, Anthony, wh, gassed CA (San Bernardine) May 13, 19
D5
= see
0 em eee
Brought back from St. Louis to face charge that he
killed insurance salesman, accused kicks cameraman.
Through want ads the slayer picked his victims.
Each was a potential prospect for...
BY DUGAL O'LIAM
*
A full moon
fornia’s Puente
with a soft light
It was a peace
so peaceful that
along Telegrap!
hardly prepared
Nearing the 1
nue, his headligt
obviously distra
saw her, she was
at once that he
body.
The rancher ;
alongside the g
police. He’s kill
Olsen didn’t i:
community of S
tier. There he t
her the number
She got the call
been shot, gave 1
was calling and
Within a few
arrived. Ranche
rected Rawley t:
side road leadin;
to a clump of tr:
There the off
figure at the ed;
children; and i
TRUE POLICE CASES, May, 1954
24
a date to pick me up in Los Angeles. From there we drove to
meet a man in front of the Biltmore Hotel. Andy had
placed a want ad in a Los Angeles paper, offering to sell
his car. The stranger had called and arranged the appoint-
ment.
“The man told us to drive to Whittier ; he said that he
wanted to show the car to his wife. Then he had us drive
into Lakeland Lane.
“He had my friend get into the back seat with him and
told me to drive. When we got to this spot he just suddenly
shot Andy. I leaped out of the car and started to run as
fast as I could.”
“Did he grab you?” Rawley asked, nodding at her dress,
from which the belt had been ripped and which was torn
from the waist down almost to the hem.
“No,” the girl said. “I think I caught my belt in the car
door handle as I jumped out. But I thought I heard bullets
hitting the dirt near me as I ran. I know I heard other
shots, so he may have been trying to kill me to keep me
from getting away.”
In answer to Rawley’s questioning, the young woman
told him that she was Dolly Ann McCormick, 21, of 12511
Hortense Avenue, Los Angeles, Next, Rawley, through the :
two-way radio in’ his car, summoned an ambulance, and
the body of the slain man was taken to a Whittier mortuary.
In the meantime, Miss McCormick was given medical
attention for shock, and then taken to her home.
The next day, Sunday, refreshed and confident after a
night’s rest under opiates, Dolly Ann tolda terrifying story.
Her audience was Chief of Detectives Gordon Bowers’ of
the Los Angeles Police Department, and Sergeants
Norman Hamilton and Ned Lovretovich of the sheriff’s
staff. A former University of Arkansas co-ed, with soft,
intelligent eyes and the musical speech of her ancestry,
When young Kmiec placed a want ad, offering for sale his new
car, below, he unwittingly set the stage for his own murder.
Lovely Belle Brooks narrowly escaped tragedy when she, too,
published an ad offering her furs for sale. Thugs stole them.
Dolly Ann McCormick made an appealing figure as she
recited the incredible details of the Saturday night that had
started so happily but had ended so tragically in violent
death,
She had met Andrew Kmiec at a party three months
before and they had been seeing each other regularly ever
since. On Saturday night they had planned to have dinner
together and then go on to a party at the home of some
friends. Kmiec had joined her and told her that he had to
meet a man who was interested in buying Kmiec’s 1953
Mercury convertible. He was to pick him up in front of the
Biltmore Hotel, in downtown Los Angeles,
The man was to have been wearing a dark brown sport
coat, Dolly Ann said. But when they arrived in front of
the Biltmore, there had been no one in sight so attired.
They had circled the block and, on the second time around,
a man wearing a light tan suéde jacket had hailed them
and announced that hé was the person who had contacted
Kmiec about the car.
Dolly Ann said he had seemed to be petulant, and had
pointed out that they were ten minutes late. Also, the man
had at first appeared to be annoyed because:she was in’ the
car. Before he got in he had asked if she intended to go
along. When Kmiec had replied that he saw no reason
she shouldn’t, the man had said nothing.
Dolly Ann described the man as well-dressed; as some-
where around SO years of age; very slender ; with thinning
hair that was graying ; high cheek bones and hollow cheeks,
a high bridged riose and spectacles similar to those found
at the murder scene. She guessed his height at around 5
feet 10 inches and _ his weight at somewhere around
140.
Dolly Ann then told of the route they had taken.
Although both Kmiec and Dolly Ann were beginning to
A
ww \
“et WS
Wife of suspect
she tells Sheriff ]
her husband is
be uneasy, the y:
request that Kmiec
of the car while th
told her to drive
Lakeland Lane.
frenziedly about h
be making no pro;
the car.
They had beer
quarter of a mile,
Dolly Ann to sto
Kmiec mentioned
he had not quite c:
thing about there
suddenly‘he asked,
Kmiec replied t
man pulled a pisto
“T guess you know
Obviously thin}
offered the man .
car, if he would nm
“T don’t want
“You’ve got enem
Appalled, Kmie:
vince the sinister i
“Oh, but you hi
who they are, too.”
Kmiec moved a
explosion slamme
Kmiec’s body slu
plosion, and the st
on the floor of the
Dolly Ann, with
sessed, threw ope:
thing caught the |
strength she rippe
Painter Avenue.
She heard two
bullets struck the
ceased and she ran
who took her to thc
Dolly Ann told
had not had any dea
very close friends
told her of his boyh
he had studied wh
charge, he could qu
‘'Y DUGAL O'LIAM
Fa
A full moon hung, round and comforting, above Cali-
fornia’s Puente Hills, suffusing the verdant Pomona Valley
with a soft light.
It was a ‘peaceful scene, this night of November 21, 1953,
so peaceful that Rancher Ernest Olsen, driving leisurely
along Telegraph Road toward his Norwalk home, was
hardly prepared for tragedy.
Nearing the intersection of Telegraph and Painter Ave-
nue, his headlights picked up the figure of a disheveled girl,
obviously distraught, staggering along the highway. As he
saw her, she was signaling to him frantically..Olsen noticed
at Pog that her dress had been all but torn from her
body. :
The rancher applied the brakes, and as his car drew up
alongside the girl, she mumbled, “Hurry, take me to the
police, He’s killed a man, and he’s trying to kill me too!”
Olsen didn’t inquire further. He drove the girl to the little
community of Santa Fe Springs, on the outskirts of Whit-
tier, There he took her to a drugstore telephone and told
her the number of the Los Angeles County sheriff’s office.
She got the call through, explained tersely that a man had
been shot, gave the address of the drugstore from which she
was calling and hung.p to wait.
Within a few minutes Deputy Sheriff Gerald Rawley
arrived. Rancher Olsen took his departure as the girl di-
rected Rawley to the scene of the crime: Lakeland Lane, a
side road leading off Painter Avenue, thence along the lane
to a clump of trees rising ghostily at the roadside.
There the officer saw a man standing above a sprawled
figure at the edge of the trees. Beside him were two small
children; and in a small car, stopped a few yards away, a
° ®
“I figured I’d pull my gun and get away,” ex-con,
below, left, gave as his reason behind shooting of
Andrew Kmiec, right, during struggle inside car.
woman sat, staring at Rawley and the girl as they got out
of the sheriff’s car.
The man quickly explained that he was Meno Butler
of nearby Leffingwell Road; that he had been driving along
the lane when he saw a man’s legs protruding from the
greenery at the foot of the trees. He had alighted to in-
‘ vestigate, he said, only a few minutes before the sheriff's
car appeared. °
Rawley observed that the body in the shrubbery showed
a bullet wound in the back, one in the neck and one over
the heart—the latter obviously the’fatal one.
The victim was a young man, somewhat above medium
height and trimly built. His face was covered with blood
from the neck wound and his eyes were fixed in a grimace
of stark terror.
Alongside the body, partly concealed by the grass, was
a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, and near the road lay the
victim’s left shoe, relatively new, of the loafer type. Gleam-
ing from the grass a foot from the spectacles lay a lone one-
cent piece, suggesting that it might have been dropped as
the murderer rifled his victim’s pockets.
However, any suggestion that the penny might have
indicated robbery was quickly controverted by the fact that
in the dead man’s pockets Rawley found $45.85 in cash. In
addition, there was the pink sales slip for a 1953 Mercury
convertible, an expensive wrist watch and a valuable tie
clip, none of which had been disturbed.
Deputy Rawley looked at his watch. It was 7:25 p.m.
He turned to the girl, but before he could speak, she seemed
to sense what he would ask. . ° 4
“He’s Andrew Kmiec, a very dear friend. He had made
Dolly Ann McCormick tells Sgt.
Norm Hamilton of her harrowing
experience as she escaped down
road after her escort was shot.
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24-year-old wife, Geraldine, and her
three sons by a former marriage.
“He could be on the Coast,” an Akron
Officer told Bowers, “We had a rumble
that his wife was picked up in San
Diego in January of this year but be-
fore we could make connections, she
had disappeared.”
But where’was Barr now? “
“It’s our job -to find him,” Bowers
told his. men.
But how? He wasn’t listed in the
telephone book or on the records. of
any of the public-utility firms. Mail-
men didn’t know his name. ° ;
“Do you think we ought to give the
identification and picture to the news-
papers?” Rosenberg asked. “Somebody
might spot him from his mug.”
Bowers shook his head. “Not yet.
. The minute he knows we've got him
pegged, he’ll run. We can't take that
chance.”
NEAT. Bowers called San Diego. Mrs.
Geraldine Barr, who had given
police her name first as Marie Yates and
then as Mrs. Anthony Bauer, had been
arrested on a charge of stealing towels
froma motel. |
“But she was expecting a child and
the motel owner felt sorry for her,” a
San Diego officer reported. “We let
her go. Then we found out that her
husband was wanted in Ohio, but they'd
already skipped.
“Our investigation shows his real
name is Gilbauer, although he used the
name of Bauer when he married the
woman in Las Vegas. He was driving a
‘forty-nine Lincoln coupe, which Ohio
tells us they think was stolen back
there.” ;
“Can you go over the birth records
and see if she had the baby there and
what address she gave?” Bowers asked.
When the San Diego officers agreed,
Bowers called in Etzel and Hamilton.
“I want you to go over the birth records
for Los Angeles County, If you don’t,
find anything there, I want all of
Southern California covered.”
An all-points bulletin went out on
the license number of the Lincoln coupe
Barr was known to have been driving
when he was in San Diego. Then Ham-
ilton found birth records in Los Angeles
showing that Mrs. Geraldine Barr, wife
of Anthony Barr, had given birth to a
baby daughter on August 27, 1953. A
home address on South Catalina Street
in Los Angeles was listed.
The detectives raced to the address.
They found the house occupied by a
man named Bill Watkins. “We moved
in only about two weeks ago, but a
fellow by the name of Barr lived here
before us,” Miller said. “I guess he
clipped the landlady for his back rent
and moved out with a lot of furniture.
And the telephone has been ringing
. with people asking for him ever since
we moved in. They all say he owes them
money. I guess he was a dead-beat.”
The landlady, Mrs. L. R. Pierson, told
the officers that Barr had moved out of
the house owing her $54 in rent and had
taken furniture and light fixtures.
“Do you know where he went?” Etzel
asked.
“No. If I did, I’d go.to the district
attorney and have him arrested.”
. But Mrs. Pierson had one lead for
the detectives. She had noticed that
when Barr moved, he had used a truck
from a furniture company. She re-
membered the name of the firm. The
officers learned that Barr had worked
for the company as a maintenance man
They Shot the Good Samaritan
grave will seal up a lot of evidence for
good—information we must have!”
Meantime, in view of the Western
Union man’s revelations from Colorado
Springs, the search for Welch’s body
was shifted southward into Southern
Colorado and Northern New Mexico.
And the detectives canvassing East
Colfax taverns scored. .
» said he was going. to the desert and try
. she agreed to let the officers search the
for a short time. One of the employes
told them he had helped Barr move.
He gave them the new address, on
East Rosecrans Boulevard in Norwalk—
only a short distance from the spot .
where Kmiec had been killed.
“I think we're getting close,” Bowers
told his men as they headed for ‘the
house. “We'll surround the place and
move in quick. Try to take him without
gunplay, if you can.”
may show up in Saint Louis and then
he may not.”
Sheriff Biscailuz decided that it
would be best to let the newspapers
and television stations circularize the
picture of Barr.
“But don't reveal why we're after
him or that we've located his wife,”
Biscailuz advised. “This case is being
carried in the papers all over the
country. An incomplete story may
drive Barr to go to the post office to
see if his wife has any information
for him.”
As soon as Barr was named in the
inquest, pictures. of the wanted man
appeared on all the Los Angeles front
pages and were carried on the television
news broadcasts. This started an
avalanche of telephone calls to all
police agencies. Barr was seen every-
where. A dozen persons who resembled
him were picked up but finger-prints
soon cleared them.
Tuesday was a hectic day. Four
operators were placed on the Sheriff's
central switchboard to handle the tips
that came pouring in, They received
more than 50 calls an hour throughout
the day and night.
Bert only two women, three children
and a baby were in the house. The
younger woman identified herself as
Mrs. Barr and the older woman was
her mother, Mrs. Mary Grubaugh.
Mrs. Barr hadn't seen her. husband
since November 25, the day before
Thanksgiving, she said. That had been
four days after Kmiec had been killed.
“He lost his job and couldn't find
work,” Mrs. Barr told the officers. “He
to get a job there on a, project at
Trona.”.
After lengthy questioning in which
house, they found a letter pinned to a
window drape. It was addressed to Mrs.
Marie Clark and postmarked Saint .
Louis, Missouri. The writer, who had yu. on Wednesday morning, a man
signed the letter only as ‘T’, said that walked up to the general delivery
he was in Oklahoma City but had “left window of the Saint Louis post office.
for the original place and will wait for Waiting detectives identified him, from
some word from you there.” the photographs they had, as Barr.
Sunday night, Bowers telephoned the Apparently sensing that he was being
Saint Louis police. He gave Lieutenant watched, Barr turned away from the
Nicholas Kube a description of Barrand window without inquiring for mail.
asked for a stake-out on the general Sergeant Gus Ernst placed him under
delivery window at the post office. arrest. "
“We're putting his picture and finger- Barr admitted his identity but denied
prints on the plane to -you tonight,” killing Kmiec. He claimed that he had
Bowers said. “Tell your men to use not been in California at the time of
caution.” the slaying. He told a confused story,
A stake-out also was placed on the Lieutenant Kube said, of leaving his
Barr home. home in Norwalk in his Lincoln con-
As the Los Angeles County officers vertible and of stealing a car in Texas
waited, Mrs. Belle Brooks of Burbank with another ex-convict.
came into a Sheriff's substation. In California a charge of first-degree
She reported that a month previously murder’ was placed against him and
she had advertised a mink coat and a Judge Edward J. Gallardo issued a
Russian sable stole for sale. Amanhad_ warrant for his arrest.
phoned and said he would bring his ‘Hamilton and Lovretovitch were
wife to see the articles. However, he . designated as state agents and sent to
had arrived alone and produced a gun. Saint Louis to bring Barr to Los
Binding Mrs. Brooks with friction tape, Angeles when he waived extradition.
he took the two furs, a jeweled cigaret On December 10, 1953, Sheriff Bis-
case and some luggage. Subsequently ~ cailuz announced that he had received
the Las Vegas police had recovered the a telephone call from Hamilton in
fur coat in a pawnshop but had been which Hamilton claimed that Barr had
unable to find the man who pledged it. admitted the slaying. On Saturday,
“I'm sure he’s the man who was December 12, the ex-convict was back
sketched in the papers,” Mrs. Brooks in Los Angeles and was arraigned in
declared. ‘Whittier Municipal Court on a chargé
She was shown a photograph of Barr of murder. Further action is pending ’
and police claimed, positively identified as this issue of OFFICIAL DETECTIVE
him. Officers also said that Barr's home STORIES Magazine goes to press.
was searched and the sable stole and His motive? Los Angeles officers have
cigaret case were found there. A been quoted as saying that it might have -
Chief Bowers told Rosenberg: “Barr been robbery or-that it might have been
is an ex-con. He may have been pulling based on sex. They made this state-
want-ad burglaries and planned to rob ment, they said, after considering his
Kmiec but when the girl escaped he actions in Mrs. Brooks’ apartment,
got rattled and left without taking where he had been frightened away
Kmiec’s money.” before he’d had a chance to harm her.
Next, the owner of a sporting-goods Also, Chief Bowers wondered about
store in Huntington Park reported that this same motive. Had Miss McCor-
he had sold a .38 automatic to.a man ‘ mick’s belt been ripped off by the car
named Anthony Barr on February 24, door when she fied after Kmiec had
1953. The signature “Anthony Barr” been shot—or had it been pulled off by
on the permit was compared with Barr’s the killer making a lunge for her to
handwriting and experts said it was keep her in the convertible?
identical. : “From the way the dress is torn,”
A coroner's inquest was being held Miss McCormick said, “I'm inclined to
into the slaying of Kmiec. Bowers went think that he grabbed for me. He could
to Sheriff Biscailuz. ' have shot me; I was as close to the gun”
“Should we give out the information as Andy was. Maybe he had other plans
that we want Barr?” he asked. “He for me.”
(Continued from Page 23)
At the Zephyr Bar they talked to
Mrs. Alice Wacob, who quickly identi-
fied the Cavanaugh and Jones pictures.
She stated that the pair had arrived
there about 6:45 the evening of July 29
and had three or four drinks of whisky
“He seemed itching for a beef,” she
told Detectives C. Moody and C. Kirk-
patrick. ‘The little man offered apolo-
gies for the other’s actions. When they
left about thirty minutes later, neither
appeared drunk.”
each, Cavanaugh, confronted with that in-
The big man, she said, acted very formation by Captain Flor, brushed it
nervous. aside hastily.
|
Pe 8 Naead
‘%
2
he
and wit
Miss McCormick with two pictures of the man who, she said,
didn’t kill her because “he may have had other plans for me"
to a garage and told them: “Don’t ever
take your car there. I had my wife's
car in there and it cost me twenty-one
dollars and within two weeks I had to
have the work done over. It’s a gyp
outfit.”
Miss McCormick was able to locate
the garage and Bowers assigned men to
go over the records for every bill in
the $21 bracket for the past year, in-
terview these customers and compare
them with the description of the
slayer.
Kmiec’s brother and another broth-
-er-in-law, Vic Szurgot, arrived on the
plane from Hammond. With them,
Bowers went over Kmiec’s past life
since he was a child. They could find
no motive for the killing. :
Every routine move was being made
by the big staff of Sheriff Eugene Bis-
cailuz. Cleaning establishments were
canvassed in the event they'd received
the trousers and suede jacket, which
must have become bloodstained as the
slayer dragged the body from the car.
Pottery plants throughout Southern
California were asked to report the
name of any employe who. answered
the killer's description, since he had
mentioned he was in that business.
But 24 hours passed and as Bowers
and his men worked grimly on the case
Sunday night they realized they still
had-a long way to go.
The big questions still remained un-
answered. Why had Kmiec been killed?
Who had hired the gun? And why had
the killer allowed Miss McCormick to
escape?
At eight o’clock Monday morning,
Jack Londo, a bartender, called in.
“TI read in the papers about that kill-
ing,” he said. “A cream-colored Mer-
cury convertible is parked in the park-
ing-lot next door and it looks like it's
got blood on one side and in the back
seat. It doesn't have Indiana license
plates, but I figured you had better take
a look at it.” 2
The location was in the Boyle
Heights district, only a few blocks off
Whittier Boulevard and almost back to
Los Angeles where Miss McCormick,
Kmiec and the killer had started their
death ride on Saturday evening. |
Sergeants Hamilton and Lovretovich
raced to the scene. This was Kmiec’s
car, all right, although it bore Califor-
nia plates. The doors were unlocked
but: the keys gone from the ignition.
On the floor in the back was the mate
to the bloody shoe found on the high-.
way as well as Miss McCormick's coat.
Blood stained the leather seats in back
and was smeared on the front seat as
if the killer had wiped his blood-
drenched hands on it.
Becker and his lab crew .swarmed
over the car. ‘
poe to find out how long the
automobile had been parked in the
lot, Hamilton learned that a prowler-
car crew, Officers Jerry Campbell and
B. J. Rautert, had seen it there late
Saturday night and had turned in a
report on the license numbers.
Apparently the killer had fled from
the death scene and abandoned the
convertible, possibly less than fifteen
minutes -after the slaying.
But why had he changed the license
on the car if he had not intended to
keep it? :
A radio call from Hamilton sent ma-
chinery into operation to learn the
name of the owner of the plates. He
turned out to be a man named Porter,
of Compton, owner of a Dodge coupe.
Men were sent out to interview him.
Becker was jubilant when his crew
finished its examination of the con-
vertible.
“Five latent prints!” he told’
Hamilton.
“Have you got enough to make a
search of the files to see if the killer
has a record?” ae
BECKER shook his head. “That takes
at least five prints from one hand,
and to do it right you need all ten. But
if we get a suspect, we'll nail him with
these prints.”
Finding the car seemed to add cre-
dence to the killer’s statement that he
had been hired, for he had gained noth-
ing. He hadn’t taken the money or
watch from the body and he had aban-
doned the automobile apparently a few.
minutes after the slaying.
While detectives, were wondering
about the motive, Kurt Krueger, a
character actor from Hollywood living
on Hedges Way, came in to see Chief
Bowers.
He reported that he had returned
from Europe recently and decided to
sell his convertible, advertising it in the
newspaper for $7,250. On Thursday
morning, a man had called inquiring
about it and Krueger had told him it
was on display at a used-car lot.
Later the mna had called back and
said that he and his wife had seen the
car and would like to buy it. He asked
Krueger to meet him in the, Biltmore
Hotel at 4:30 to complete the deal.
“I asked him to call back because I
wanted to get a friend to drive me to
town,” Krueger reported. “I made the
arrangements and this fellow did call
back, but he had cooled off on the deal.
He.made some excuse about his wife
and said he would get in touch with
me again on Friday. But he didn’t.”
. This call was similar to the. one
Kmiec had received. The meeting-
place was the same—the Biltmore
: “One bloody thumb-print.
on the rearview mirror that’s a honey!”
‘Hotel. And both men had talked of bu
ing. the car for their wives.
If it were the killer, had he chang.
his mind because Krueger had plann:
to bring someone with him?
And how did_this fit in with t)
slayer’s own statement that he h:
been hired to kill Kmiec? And the la:
of any other motive since he had n
kept Kmiec’s car or taken his watch |
money?
But as the investigators wrestk
with the new problem, they were se:
off on a new track when Miss McCo
mick reported that she had received
threatening telephone call.
**K EEP your mouth shut or you’ll g.
what your boy friend got,” a gru
voice had warned her.
Fortunately, telephone-company re:
ords showed that this had been a tc
call. It came from a drug store in tI
East Los Angeles area, a large sto:
with a number ‘of telephone booth
No one there could remember who ha
placed the call. A description of tl
killer circulated in the store and tk
near-by district failed to produce an
results. ‘
Miss McCormick was unable to te
whether the voice was that of th
slayer. It had been heavily’ disguise
as it came over the wire. -
A crank? Or had the slayer finall
realized that this girl was the onl
witness against him? The guard aroun
the house where Miss McCormick live
was strengthened.
Detectives ‘tracing the license plat
‘found on Kmiec’s car located Porte:
He had sold the car. Another searc!
led them to Clarence Page, a postal em
ploye who lived in South Gate.
He had noticed the plate missin
(Continued on Page 56)
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“I thought I was safe enough when I
sawed off the barrel of the gun, but I
forgot about that tractor key. I puess a
fellow just can't think of everything."
Alfred was charged with first-degree
murder.
He was tried first on the charge of
bank robbery and sentenced to three
years in prison. Then, on October 22,
1953, he was found guilty of the murder
of George Craig by a jury in the
Supreme Court at Peace River.
Justice E. R. Wilson sentenced Alfred
to be hanged. He has appealed the
death sentence and as this issue of
OFFICIAL DETECTIVE STORIES
Magazine goes to press, his appeal is
pending and a charge of murder forthe
death of Harold Sherris has been held
over.
The names of James McLaren and
Charlie White Wolf are fictitious in this
story.
Hired to Kill (Continued from Page 13)
from his car two weeks previously. “I
didn't think it was stolen,” Page told
the officers. “I thought I'd lost it. So I
sent in a request to the license depart-
ment for a substitute plate.”
Page lived in the same general area
as the svene of the crime, adding to the
theory that the killer too, might also
be from that area.
Further, the plate had been missing
for two weeks, showing that a crime
must have “been planned for at least
that length of time.
And it brought up a problem that °
had perplexed the investigators at the
time Kmiec’s car was found. Why had
the plate been stolen and placed on the
convertible if the killer had not in-
tended to keep the machine?
MEANWHILE, the detectives going
over the books at the garage Miss
McCormick had pointed out came up
with a great number of repair bills in
the $21 bracket. By talking to the man-
ager and mechanics who knew many of
the customers, they pared the list down
to fifteen names and began their in-
vestigation of these.
Bowers and Rosenberg continued a
dogged search through the list of
friends and acquaintances of Miss Mc-
Cormick and Kmiec in an effort to give
gy some reason for the bizarre slay-
ng
Then, early Monday evening, Doctor
C. C, Perrin, a chiropractor of Hunting-
ton Park, was ushered into - Chief
Bowers’ office.
“I read the description of the man
who killed Kmiec and I think I’ve seen
him,” Doctor Perrin stated.
The Doctor declared that he had
advertised an automobile for sale. A’
man had phoned at one o'clock Friday
afternoon inquiring about it and
Doctor Perrin told him where it could
be seen. He called a second time and
asked if he could see the Doctor at
seven o'clock in his office to discuss
buying it.
“He came in at seven and I’m sure
he’s the same man,” Doctor Perrin said.
“He was wearing a brown suede jacket,
brown trousers and rimless glasses. His
light brown hair receded from his fore-
head and he had dirty, irregular teeth,
just as that girl described him.”
The man had stayed at the office for
two hours waiting for his wife to arrive.
Finally he left, telling Doctor Perrin:
“I don’t know where she got to, but if
she shows up and you're still around,
tell her I’m down at the Crystal Bar
having a drink.”
The man apparently had meant the
McCrystal Room, which is only a few
doors from the Doctor’s -office.
Bowers questioned Doctor Perrin
closely going over every word the man
had spoken in a search for some clue
to his identity.
He came up with the following - facts:
The man had given his name as Bowers
or Bauer. He had not seemed nervous
and Doctor Perrin hadn't suspected
anything was wrong until he read the
description of Kmiec's slayer in the
newspapers,
The man claimed he worked as a
superintendent in a pottery manufac-
turing plant and tried to give the im-
pression that he was well to do,
although the Doctor noted that his
hands were rough and he apparently
was not very well educated.
He mentioned having a family and
several children and spoke of owning
three television sets, although he did
not speak of one of the children break-
ing the screen as he had in the car
with Miss McCormick and Kmiec.
SHOWN the glasses found at the death
scene, Doctor Perrin stated he was
positive they were the very pair the
man had worn.
The man had given Doctor Perrin a °
telephone number where he could be
reached the next day. When the Doctor
called, it turned out to be a drygoods
store in Compton and no one there
knew anyone by the name of Bowers or
Bauer.
At the conclusion of the interview,
Chief Bowers felt certain that Doctor
Perrin had seen and talked with the
slayer of Kmiec.
“I'd like you to come in tomorrow
morning,” Bowers told Doctor Perrin.
“We'll have Miss McCormick here and
an artist. Maybe the.two of you can
provide us with a sketch of the man
that somebody may recognize.”
Detectives were sent to the McCrystal
Room to talk with the bartenders and
patrons to see if anyone could recall
a person of the killer's description.
Huntington Park is also in the same
vicinity as the scene of the slaying.
With Doctor Perrin’s story, Chief
Bowers was convinced that the state-
ment by the slayer—that he had been
hired to kill Kmiec—was fictitious.
Nothing in Kmiec’s past indicated a
motive. Furthermore, this slayer ap-
parently had answered two other ads
offering cars for sale. The Chief of
Detectives felt that, they definitely
were up against a psychopathic killer.
Newspapers, using the case for head-
lines, jumped on this angle, calling the
slayer ‘“‘Moon-Mad". Krueger had been
called on Thursday, the night of the full
moon, Doctor Perrin on Friday and
Kmiec on Saturday. Reporters quoted
various authorities on moon+madness,
citing the fact that even the term
“lunacy” is derived from the word luna,
meaning moon.
They quoted Superior Judge Charles
W. Fricke, who has presided over a
great number of homicide trials, as say-
ing: “The influence of the moon is a
phenomenon well known in crimi-
nology. Persons who may be somewhat
psychopathic have been known to lose
control over their inhibitions at such
times (periods of the full moon).”
Doctor Brunon B. Bielinski, a Los
Angeles psychiatrist, was quoted as
saying, “The full moon is symbolically
significant in a distorted way to emo-
tionally disturbed people. They have a
complex conditioned reaction to it and
may act out of delusions or repressions
under its influence.”
Chief Bowers put it more bluntly:
“We've got a crackpot to deal with.
It's the hardest kind of a crime to
solve because of the apparent lack of
motive. We'll have to rely now on the
physical evidence we’ ve got and make
it point him out to us.”
“Moon-mad, or plain nuts, we've
got to get him in a hurry,” Rosenberg
declared. “If he’s a screwball he'll just
go on killing people until we grab him.”
‘The hottest lead seemed to be the
mention the killer had made to both
Miss McCormick and Doctor Perrin
that he was married, had children and
ea
|
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Bow
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5
worked in the pottery business. These
had been made in casual
parently
And as Rosenberg put it, “The pot-
tery business is hardly the kind of fact
a man_ would make up and repeat
twice.”
Every ‘available man on the Sheriff's
staff was sent out to visit the numerous
pottery-manufacturing concerns in
Southern California.
Tuesday morning Miss McCormick
and Doctor Perrin came into the office
to work with a staff artist. Under their
instructions a sketch was made, then
altered and changed until at last they
were satisfied that they had a good
headlines asked, with Page One repro-
ductions of the sketch.
By evening the switchboards of the
Los Angeles police, the Sheriff's office
and substations were flooded with calls.
Clerks laboriously tried to sort out
more urgent reports, while making &
record of every call so it eventually
could be investigated.
Wednesday morning, Lieutenant
Etzel and Sergeant Hamilton went
racing out to South Gate after a tele-
phone call from Mrs. Dotty Coward,
whose husband, Charles, worked as &
bartender at the McCrystal Room,
which the killer had mentioned to
Doctor Perrin.
“That man came to my door,” she
told the officers, “and said to me, ‘T
know your husband has gone to work.
Tell him I’ll do the same thing to him
that I did to the insurance man if he
Mrs. Coward had slammed the door
in his face and bolted it.
“But I'm positive he’s the man whose
sketch and description are in the
papers,” she declared.
Etzel and Hamilton went to the Mc-
Crystal Room and interviewed Coward.
He studied the sketch. .
“J just don’t recognize the guy,”
Coward said. “Maybe he knows me. A
lot of people come in here.”
Again, was this the killer or @ crank?
Coward had moved to his present ad-
dress only the day before. The
who had threatened Mrs. Coward must
crime scene.
wen killer must live out there some-
. place,” Chief Bowers said. “How
are the boys coming with that canvass
- of the television repair shops?”
No leads along that line had been
developed.
- However, a riumber of persons had
been questioned by police.
A man was found in Buena Park who
closely resembled the sketch. Miss Mc-
Cormick and Doctor Perrin were taken
to view him in a line-up but they
couldn’t place him. And the bloody
finger-prints from Kmiec’s car def-
initely eliminated the man.
The lab crew, still working on the
physical evidence, came up with a
minor point. All four polts holding the
stolen plate to Kmiec’s car were new.
‘When this information was released to
the newspapers, Al Jacobson, who runs
an auto-supply store in South Gate,
told the detectives that about a week
before the crime he had sold four such
bolts to a man who resembled the sketch
of the killer.
It was one more bit of proof that the
killer must live in the area.
But where?
‘And how long before he struck again?
Each 24 hours was filled with hun-
dreds of telephone tips. Detectives
raced from one end of the county to
_ the other to follow through on them.
Dozens of arrests were made each day,
with the suspects finger-printed and
cleared as soon as their prints did not
_ match up with the bloody impressions
from the car.
A number of times the investigators
felt that they finally had stumbled
across the right one—a mental patient
picked up near Miss McCormick’s
home, a man working in a pottery plant
who closely resembled the sketch—but
each time the finger-print expert shook
his head when he compared the prints.
Friday night, with the crime a week’
old, Bowers called in his men for @&
conference. “What do we actually
know?” he asked. “What are our
chances of getting this fellow?”
Captain Rosenberg scowled. “When
you narrow it down to facts, we don't
know much. The fellow may be a
psycho, so that leaves us without a
motive. Indications are he lives out in
the Whittier area someplace and he
might work for & pottery company.
That's all.” :
Bowers asked Etzel, “How are you
coming on the pottery outfits?”
“J don’t think we missed a place be-
tween San Diego and San Francisco.
With the canvass we've made and the -
publicity in the newspapers, this suy.
couldn’t possibly be working in a pot-
tery plant—or even & fairly recent
employe.” :
“Do you think this pottery plant
idea was a phony?” Rosenberg asked.
“J don’t know,” Etzel said frankly.
“All I know is, it isn’t likely he is work-
one of the places now, Or did
one recently.”
a cigaret. “Doctor
fellow used the name
didn’t he?”
ing in
Rosenberg’s
ing that he might be a relative?”
“Hardly.
haven't done much with that name yet.
I want to see the
criminal who eve
It was a big
than 40 persons going through the large
and. modern
steady stream of criminals’ -photo-
graphs came in
all resembled the description of the
killer were sent to the lab for a com-
parison test of the finger-prints.
WELL after midnight Etzel came
bursting into Chief Bowers’ Office.
He had a wanted bulletin issued in
April, 1952, from Akron, Ohio, listing
an Anthony Barr, alias Anthony Zil-
bauer, alias Tony Bauer, as wanted for
larceny on bad checks.
“He looks like the sketch,” Bowers
said, noting the pronrinent ears, the flat
nose and the deep lines along the’
cheeks.
“and the name is Anthony,” Etzel
declared. “Remember the ‘ant’ on
Kmiec’s desk? We thought at the time
it might be an abbreviation for An-
thony.”
The bulletin listed Barr as 53 years
old and a former inmate of the Ohio
State Prison. But no finger-print
record had been included on the year-
and-half-old circular. 5
“Telephone Akron and have them
send us this man's prints by airmail,
special delivery,” Bowers ordered. “He’s
probably back in jail by this time, but
we can't afford to overlook any pos-
sibility.”
The prints arrived late Saturday
afternoon. Within a half-hour Tech-
nician Becker stated that they matched.
“J found twenty-one points of sim-
ilarity, which is plenty for proof in any
court,” Becker said.
By long-distance telephone, Bower
obtained the history of Anthony Barr.
He had been given a year for forgery
in Cleveland in 1922. he had
been sentenced for
from Akron.
re-arrested: for parole violation in 1945
and served an
Cleveland put
one-to-20-year rap
he was paroled in
released from parole one year later.
Akron police still were looking for
him on the bad
there on March 25, 1952, and their last
trace was at his mother’s address in
Cleveland in. June of the same year,
where he had been staying with his
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( suppose
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aned. “I
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owntown
moments
n, whose
Andy at
“We're
1. Dolly
loth rib-
oat. His
“Tf my
r all, it’s
yer chat-
ind thick
works in
Santa Anita. He’d been in the business all his life. His:
father had brought a secret: glazing formula from ‘the old
country many years before.
He told of buying Thanksgiving turkeys for his employees,
and complained of having been gypped in their purchase.
He spoke of his family. One of his two rambunctious boys,
he said, kids of 9 and 6, had hurled a toy cap pistol into the
television screen. It was lucky they owned a second set.
Dolly instinctively disliked the man, probably, she con-
ceded, because of his filthy, irregular teeth, most of them
pitted with black cavities. Perhaps it was because he had
not bothered to shave, and maybe a little because, as he
rode, he kept his right hand beneath the suede jacket, like’
a gunman in a film melodrama.
They stopped once, for gas. As they passed a garage in
Whittier, the buyer pointed it out. :
“Don’t ever take a car there,” he counseled. ‘I gave ’em
my wife’s Cadillac there. It cost me $21, and in two weeks -
I had to take it back for the same thing.” -
At Painter Avenue he directed Kmiec to turn right. They
cruised south, through Santa Fe Springs toward Norwalk.
Here the compact blocks of suburban dwellings thinned out
in old, abandoned orange groves, in scattered homesteads,
except for some tracts given over to new housing develop-
ments.
Painter Avenue dead-ended in Lakeland Road. It was a
lonely spot, with no homes nearby.
“Dear me,” the bespectacled man said, “I’ve been talking
so much I missed the way.”
He directed Andy, uncertainly, over several back roads,
until they returned once more to Lakeland, just east of
Painter Avenue.
Andy tromped the brake and stopped. “Look here,” he
said, ‘do you actually know where you’re going?”
The man laughed. It was a hollow, mocking laugh. “I
know where I’m going,” he chortled. “Do you know what
this is?”
Swiftly, his right hand snaked from under his. jacket.
The blue-black snout of a revolver bore menacingly at
Kmiec.
In the air force in World War II, Andy Kmiec had known
death and the peril of death at very close hand, but he was
aware now instantly that death never had been nearer.
The man’s voice, the kilker’s eyes, told him that.
. “Take the car,” Andy said. “Take my money. Take
anything I’ve got, but don’t hurt us.”
The shrill laugh sounded devilish in the quiet dusk.
“T’ve been hired to kill you. You’ve got an enemy who
wants you dead.”
“There’s nobody wants me killed,” Andy declared.
“Tl show you. Getin back. The girl will drive.”
It was an aimless ride that wound up right back in the
same desolate spot. Kmiec tried desperately to persuade
the gunman to set Dolly and him free.
“I’ve got some stocks and bonds, some cash in the bank,”
he said. “It’s all yours, if you’ll let us go.”
“IT don’t want your money.” The pistol muzzle centered
on Kmiec’s head. “I’m being well paid for this job.”
The whole interior of the car seemed to explode with
the crash of the gun.
Dolly wrenched open the door. There was another flash,
a second deafening blast. Something gripped at the belt
around her dress. The girl hurled herself out of the car,
and the belt tore loose from its loops and left her free.
She ran west along the road. She fell, picked herself up
and staggered on. The lights of a car, coming up from
beyond the cream convertible, bore down on her. She
began to scream, just as a third shot was fired.
Ernest Olsen, driving cityward with his wife, saw the girl
frantically waving him down... He heard her cries, and then
a gunshot. He stopped beside the girl.
“Take me to a telephone!” she cried hysterically. “He’s
killed a man back there! He’s going to kill me, too!”
Olsen sped north along Painter Avenue to a drugstore at
Telegraph Road. He helped Dolly out of the car and drove
away.
Dolly telephoned the sheriff’s substation at Norwalk and
deputies sped at once to the drugstore. When they arrived,
they found a girl almost incoherent with terror.
“My boy friend’s just been shot!” she sobbed.
“Where is he?” the officers asked.
“I don’t know—somewhere—a dark road—not very far,”
she said numbly. , ;
“Come with us,” they said. ‘Maybe you can show us
Clerk Jones and Sheriff Wilson (seated) study prints of man accused of stealing furniture. Bullets recovered
from slain man‘s body and eyeglasses held by Sgt. Lovretovich are most vital links in murder investigation
verything.”
Don’t make
—and he’ll
her, gently
ie.”
icers in the
sland. “This
er machine
ined Menno
found this.”
of. bush just
through .the
art.
ineth Irving
inty sheriff’s
», in addition
r had worn.
to seize the
seat before
found in the -
and a single
orman Ham-
of the fatal
a physician
) bed in the
station, with
fficers added
aps five feet
Biscailuz (r.)
unt for killer
Lieut. Nicholas Kube of St. Louis police does not seem impressed by suspect’s angry gestures and loud protests
eight inches tall and: weighing possibly 150 pounds. His
graying chestnut hair was thinning. He was nearsighted
and, unless he had a spare pair, now without his glasses.
The bulletin emphasized his bad teeth.
The detectives found Alec Milne, the handsome Lock-
heed test pilot with whom Andy Kmiec had shared an
apartment. Shocked by the news of the murder, Milne
could add little information, except to say that there had
been one other call about his roommate’s car, from a
woman who phoned once but did not call back, as she had
promised to do. He told the officers of Andy’s apprehen-
sion about the strange rendezvous at the Biltmore.
“I should have gone with him,” Milne said bitterly. “But
I didn’t think anything was really wrong. It just seemed
to me that Saturday night was an odd time for anyone
to want to buy a car. They would have had to wait until
Monday for transfer of legal papers. But.it didn’t sound
like a plot. That’s storybook stuff. It just doesn’t happen.
Only this time, it did. I’d have passed up all football games
for the rest of my life to prevent this.” He added, “The
poor guy spent the whole day Saturday cleaning and wash-
ing his car, getting it ready to sell.”
Milne couldn’t figure the hired killer angle. Kmiec, he
said, was in trouble with no one. He didn’t drink or gam-
ble. He not only lived within his income as an insurance
adjuster, but managed to save some money. He owed
nobody. He had received no threats, by letter or phone.
“It doesn’t add up,” he stoutly insisted, “this ‘gun-for-
hire’ line.”
Al Etzel had given that some thought, too. “How could
it be true?” he said to Captain Irving. “The murderer
makes his contact by phoning about a car for sale. There
was no name in the want ad. Just a description of the
meee : : mm ON SOLE OM EE ARTE TRE IT
car, and a phone number. How’d a hired gunnie know it
was Kmiec whose ad he was answering?”
“Only one way,” Irving said. “The enemy’d have to be
somebody close to Kmiec. Very close, to know about the
want ad: and tip the hired killer. But a hired gun, work-
ing with an eyewitness, doesn’t tally up, either, unless he
meant to shoot the girl, too. You’d think he’d have plugged
her the instant she made a break. He’d already put one
slug-:in Kmiec. He could: have shot the girl, then finished
her boy friend off.”
From the lab, the police learned the slayer’s bifocals were
about 15 years old. Nevertheless, 1100 bulletins, describ-
ing their lens prescriptions, were sent to optometrists and
opticians all over Southern California, with an urgent
request for record checks to try to identify the wearer
of these glasses.
The files were checked in the garage where the killer said
he had been bilked, and a list compiled of patrons who
had paid garage bills of around $21 since September Ist.
This part of the murderer’s chatter en route to the execu-
tion scene might be true. The detectives believed the man
must be from the area, to know its back roads so well.
All but eight garage customers were immediately checked
out. Captain W. F. Rosenberg, in charge of the case, sent
men at once to check these eight.
Only a few hours after the story of the slaying broke in
the Sunday morning newspapers, Kurt Krueger, an actor
living in West Hollywood, phoned the office of Sheriff
Eugene Biscailuz. He said he had narrowly missed a meet-
ing with the want-ad killer.
Acting for a friend, Krueger had advertised a de luxe
model 1953 Cadillac for sale for $7250. On Thursday he
had a call from a man who gave (Continued on page 84)
14
Letter written to ‘Mrs. Marie Clark” in Los Angeles (ri)
was dated Oklahoma City and postmarked St. Louis, Mo.
picked up lovely, dark, green-eyed Dolly Ann McCormick
at her uncle’s home in North Hollywood and headed back
down the scenic canyon drives toward Los Angeles.
En route he explained their rendezvous. A phone call
from a man had answered his ad offering to sell his 1953
Mercury convertible coupe for $2750. The man explained
that he lived out in Whittier, diagonally across the city
from Kmiec’s apartment in Beverly Glen Boulevard, West-
wood, just west of Beverly Hills. ;
“Said he didn’t want to travel 30 miles across the city
just to look at the car,” Kmiec recounted. “He offered to
meet me half way, at the Biltmore.”
“Wearing a white carnation?” Dolly’s drawl was as soft
as California sunshine, unleavened by only three months”
absence from her parent’s home, Prairie Grove, Arkansas.
“A brown sports jacket,” Andy replied. ‘Oh, I suppose
nothing could be: wrong. He’s probably a screwball, most
likely loaded with dough, likes to do things his own dopey
way. Alec’s maybe right! I’ve been watching too much
TV
Dolly laughed merrily. “My Uncle Jim hears you say
something like that, he’ll buy a dog to set on you, next time
you call-for me.”
He grinned back. ‘Sorry, Uncle Jim,” he clowned. “I
clean forgot you were a television executive. I’ll bring a
steak for the dog. Better yet, honey, P’ll buy you one to-
night after I close the deal.”
Kmiec parked in front of the Biltmore Hotel in downtown
Los Angeles, leaving Dolly in the car. A few moments
later he returned with a small, middle-aged man, whose
name he mumbled in the introduction to the girl.
She slid-into the middle of the front seat, with Andy at
‘the wheel, the prospective buyer at her right. ‘“We’re
driving out to Whittier,” Andy said.
“To show my wife the car,’ the stranger said. Dolly
noted that he wore a brown suede jacket with cloth rib-
bing at the elbows, instead of a regular sports coat. His
trousers, of light tan flannel, were freshly pressed. ‘If my
wife likes the car,” the man said, “I’ll buy. After all, it’s
for her.” ‘
All the long way out Whittier Boulevard, the buyer chat-
ted continually, his pale blue eyes blinking behind thick
rimless bifocal glasses.
He said he was superintendent of a pottery works in
so
16
Innocent family had moved in new home recently. Truck
driver remembered and helped police in locating them
Lieutenant Etzel, chief of homicide, found a letter on
back of draperies, first hint of suspect’s whereabouts
the place where it was. We’ll take care of everything.”
She shrank back, weeping uncontrollably. ‘Don’t make
me go back there,” she choked. ‘He’s there—and he’ll
shoot me.”
“Who’s there?” Deputy Gerald Rawley asked her, gently
patient.
“I don’t know—a man—I don’t know his name.”
Reluctantly, she agreed to accompany the officers in the
patrol car. They set off toward Painter and Lakeland. ‘“‘This
looks like it,” she said faintly, at last.
The cream convertible was gone, but another machine
stood in lonely Lakeland Road.
“My boy saw this shoe in the road,” explained Menno
Butler, its driver. ‘I pulled up to look, and we found this.”
He directed Rawley to the body in a clump of. bush just
off the roadway. It was Andy Kmiec, shot through the
face, through the shoulder and through the heart.
There were clues for Homicide Captain Kenneth Irving
and Lieutenant Al Etzel of the Los Angeles County sheriff’s
force, one very important clue, right at the scene, in addition
to Dolly McCormick’s description of the killer.
This was the pair of bifocal glasses the slayer had worn.
They had been wrenched off, either as he tried to seize the
girl or as he struggled with Kmiec in the back seat before
the slug in the heart ended the fight.
Two unfired .38-caliber cartridges also were found in the
road, along with one of Kmiec’s loafer shoes and a single
penny.
Irving and Etzel, with Detective Sergeants Norman Ham-
ilton and Ned Lovretovich, heard the story of the fatal
ride as Dolly McCormick sobbed it out before a physician
administered a strong sedative and put her to bed in the
home of her uncle, sales manager of a TV station, with
whose family she was visiting.
To their first alarm bulletin, the sheriff’s officers added
that the killer was a short, compact man, perhaps five feet
SE
Chief of Detectives Bowers and Sheriff Biscailuz (r.)
followed trail of many crimes in their hunt for killer
Lieut
eigh
gray
and,
The
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hire
Suspicious of man carting off furniture, apartment man-
ager McDaniel took license number, gave it to police.
His wife was afraid of suspect’s evil temper, but in-
sists to Sheriff Biscailuz “He couldn’t have done it.”
LOOK FOR A PSYCHOPATH continued
But the car wasn’t a convertible; it was a sedan, and
inside were a man and woman. The man, Ernest H. Olsen, a
rancher of nearby Norwalk, had, like his wife, heard the
gunfire. He threw open the door to the terrified girl and
then raced a mile ‘to the nearest phone—a drugstore at
Painter and Telegraph Road.
The call from the drugstore was logged at the Norwalk
substation of the Los Angeles County sheriff’s: office at
6:27 p.m. of this Saturday, November 21, 1953. It was
destined to set in motion one of the most intensive investi-
gations in California hjstory—and to bring to light as
puzzling and apparently senseless a crime as ever had been
perpetrated.
Deputy Sheriff Gerald E. Rawley was the first officer
at the scene, picking up the hysterical girl at the drug-
store. He was followed by other deputies, including Detec-
tive Lieutenant Al Etzel and Detective Sergeants J. Nor-
man Hamilton and Ned Lovretovich of the sheriff’s homi-
cide. bureau. ' #4
Portable lights were set. up on lonely Lakeland Road.
The elegant convertible was gone, and the gunman with
it. Another, car was at the scene—that of a South Whittier
resident, who said his young son had called attention to a
man’s new shoe lying in the road and’ he had stopped,
thinking there had been a hit-run accident.
In tangled weeds beside the road the investigators found
Andrew J. Kmiec. He was ‘shoeless and obviously dead.
Curiously enough, the horn-rimmed spectacles were still in,
place on his shattered face.
An ambulance rushed the young insurance man‘ to: Pico
Emergency Hospital where, as anticipated, he was pro-
nounced dead on arrival. ; }
Miss McCormick, a borrowed coat: about her, sat in
Rawley’s car, crying softly, waiting to tell the rest of her
nightmarish story.
In the road the deputies found an assortment of articles
—a bent pair of rimless bifocal glasses, the lenses blood-
stained; a pair of unfired .38-caliber cartridges, a woman’s
belt, a button, a comb, a penny—and the shoe observed
by the boy.
TRAIL of blood and drag marks leading from the
center of the paved road clearly showed that Kmiec’s
body had been hauled from the left side of the convertible
and then around the car to the weed patch where it had
been found. ° ‘
The: dragging unquestionably had caused Kmiec’s shoe—
an expensive, laceless “loafer” type—to slip from his foot.
The other shoe had probably come off in the car.
Miss McCormick studied the array of articles and iden- ~~
tified the belt,-button and comb as hers. She had felt a tug, ~ i
in fleeing from the convertible, and believed the belt and
button had caught on the door. Four of the belt loops on
her dress were torn.
The rimless bifocals she identified as having been worn
by the slayer, and the deputies theorized they had fallen
as the man stooped over his victim in the dragging process.
Kmiec’s body passing over the glasses would explain their
misshapen appearance and the bloodstains.
The girl added a last piece of information: the murder
weapon was a long-barreled revolver, and from its size
appeared to be of large caliber. : °
The investigators theorized the unfired cartridges had
dropped out of the gun cylinder.
Dolly McCormick accompanied the deputies to Nor-
rome
Arrested in
Lieut. Kub«
walk substa!
the convert
Kmiec, she
his brothers
California a!
A bulleti:
described as
haps 160 p
stood 5-11*
dirty, irreg
the color ‘
The man
light brown
collar. He ne
The girl
related earlic
HE had b
there wa
having met }
picture and
Parks, an exe
outlet in Ho!
Parks and hi
Prairie Grove
Andy had
Hollywood a
pany him to
convertible. ,
Times classifi
terday, arran
would be wa
Angeles.
She and Ar
it until after
They drove
~, mC POAT PEE ieicaarerneesitehecieindaaenianasandiineeaianaeaiainssitieaaitaaea asian einen . . 4 ’
mcacereectnage Ae ONO E AES 8 r tem te
sedan, and
H. Olsen, a
, heard the
ed girl and
rugstore at
he Norwalk
’s office at
153. It was
sive investi-
to light as
er had been
first officer
it the drug-
iding Detec-
ints J. Nor-
eriff’s homi-
nd Road.
runman with
uth Whittier _
ion to a
stopped,
gators found
‘iously dead.
were still in
man to Pico
he was pro-
her, sat in
e rest of her
‘nt of articles
lenses blood-
‘s, a woman’s
hoe observed
ing from the
that Kmiec’s
ae convertible
where it had
miec’s shoe—
from his foot.
car.
cles and iden-
had: felt a tug,
1 the belt and
al
belt loops on —
ing been worn
ney had fallen
agging process.
d explain their
n: the murder
from its size
-
:ridges had
yuties to Nor-
ee Oe ae Ng
Arrested in St. Louis, suspect denied he was guilty before
Lieut. Kube. Guns on desk were found in rear of car.
s
walk substation where an all-points bulletin was issued for
the convertible, which she said carried Indiana plates.
Kmiec, she explained, was from Hammond, Ind., where
his brothers were in the roofing business, and had come to
California about a year ago. whee
A bulletin also went out. for the -slayer, whom. she
described as between 45-and 50, tanned, weighing per-
haps 160 pounds and “not as tall as Andy” (Kmiec
stood 5-11), with receding, straight light brown hair and
dirty, irregular teeth. She had not been able to make out
the color “of those. terrible eyes.” ; j
The man had been attired in light tan trousers and a
light brown suede jacket with ribbing on ‘sleeves and
collar. He needed a shave. ‘
The girl told her story, portions of which she had
related earlier. :
GHE had been dating Andy Kmiec frequently, although
there was no special romantic interest between them,
having met him two months before at a party of motion
picture and television people given by her. cousin, James
Parks, an executive of Station KNBH, the NBC television
outlet in Hollywood. She had been making her home with
Parks and his wife since arrivitig four’ months ago from
Prairie Grove, Ark. She worked in Hollywood as.a sales girl.
Andy had called for her at the Parks home in North
Hollywood at 4:30 that afternoon, asking her to accom-
pany him to meet a man who was interested in buying the
convertible. Andy had an ad running in the Los Angeles
Times classified section and the man had phoned him yes-
terday, arranging a meeting for 5 p.m. today. The man
would be waiting in front of the Biltmore Hotel in Los
Angeles. °
She and Andy had a dinner date, but agreed to postpone
it until after the meeting with the prospective buyer.
They drove downtown, arriving (Continued on page 79)
In Los Angeles jail his wife rushes to embrace man of
many aliases after his arraignment on murder charge.
Suspect insisted on innocence. Annoyed by photogra-
phers, mild mask slips momentarily during reunion.
2)
a “ ; ™
a a long robbery
e Huntington po-
. to find his wife’s
ovember 18, two
t Thompson, ten,
ne, took their dog
rabbits. The dog
the boys scamper-
»f a woodland the
y at some heavy
ning white object.
»ked wide-eyed at
med. :
’s go home,” he
f here.”
- dog yelping after
vhen they went to
‘hey gathered their
Id about the skull.
ter, overheard the
ys.
tobert said. ‘“We’re
i Deputy Sheriff
ove to the school.
class and led the
then to the spot
is in a field over-
riars, about half a
ravine where the
ave months earlier.
3url E. Justice in
d Huntington. The
outies drove to the
ied by Frazier.
sed clean.
finished what the
d. “But that’s the
at those three holes,
-r bullets.”
as missing from the
around for it. The
a six-inch cover of
gh the leaves and
‘eral more -pieces of
back to Huntington
Morrison, the dead
got enough to go on
he said.
rrison exclaimed. “I
ig that should help
ted mother last year,
late at the house. It
know which dentist
e checked with every
iey were in luck. Dr.
at he made a partial
a year ago.
ought to police head-
tified it and fitted it
the skull.
aid.
sias’.
re state police labora-
» an X-ray disclosed
he skull.
blished the evidence
The case will be pre-
or a first-degree mur-
to meet in February.
, Ahas Bias is still in
ary facing up to 50
arges, while Hunting-
for his murder trial.
*
Aang ON
Look for a Psychopath
continued from page 21 —
ten minutes late. It was. dark and Andy
parked near the hotel, getting out. to look
for the man. He returned with him in about
a quarter of an hour—the unshaved man with
the rimless glasses. ~~
Andy introduced him, saying, “I’ve brought
my girlfriend along. Hope you don’t mind,”
but she failed to catch the other’s name.
The man smiled and squeezed in beside her,
saying it would be necessary to drive to
Whittier so his wife could ‘see the car, that
he was buying it for her. Andy agreed to drive
there, but asked the man to direct him.
They chatted pleasantly en route and then,
after a time, he gave directions that led them
into a series of desolate streets and, once, into
a dead end. Obviously, in view of later events,
their passenger was looking for a likely spo
for what he planned to do. ;
Then, as she was beginning to puzzle over
their seemingly aimless maneuvering, the man
suddenly brandished a revolver, directing Andy
to pull up. It was then he made the terrify-
ing statement, that he had been hired to kill,
and ordered her to take the wheel.
The girl shuddered, burying her face in her
hands, and a woman deputy consoled her.
Lieutenant Etzel phoned the morgue.
There was a question in the minds of the
investigators, whether in spite of his disavowal
of interest in the girl the gunman intended to
kill her too, thus ridding himself of the sole
witness to his crime.
The third bullet had been fired as she fled
down the moonlit road, but was it intended for
her? This she could not say.
The morgue physician supplied the: answer:
all three slugs had struck Andy Kmiec, whose
face and chest were seared with powder burns.
One bullet had struck the left chest and, as an
autopsy was to disclose, perforated the heart
and lodged in the liver. Another had struck
him in the face, shattering both jaws. The
last had caught him in the -back of the left
shoulder, emerging two inches from’ the en-
trance wound—an indication the car. itself
probably bore a bullet hole.
But the detectives still were unconvinced the
killer had not planned the same fate for Andy’s
companion. :
NEVERTHELESS the morgue report was
vital in another respect: two of the slugs
remained in Kmiec’s body Through the science
of ballistics these tiny pieces of metal were as
good as the slayer’s signature—if, of course,
the death weapon could be located.
One motive for the murder could now. bé
definitely written off—that of robbery. Un;
disturbed on the dead man’s person were $43
in currency, the ownership transfer on his car,
a valuable wrist watch, cuff links, gold tie
clasp, and a pen. The car itself could have
been taken without shooting anyone.
Miss McCormick repeatedly had stressed
that neither by word or deed had Andy Kmiec
indicated fear for his life from any source,
least of all someone with hate enough to
employ a killer. |
Lieutenant Etzel riffled through Saturday’s
Los Angeles Times to the classified section:
Kmiec’s “for sale” ad, still there, only: served to
point up the puzzling absence of motive. The
ad, in traditional telescoped verbiage, “Merc.
’53 conv. cpe. Merco. R-H. elec. windows Lo.
mi. $2745 pr. party (Ind CA255) ARiz 9-8726
after 5 P.M.”
Etzel showed it-to the others. *Youl no-.
tice it.doesn’t give Kmiec’s name or address,
only the Indiana license plate and his phone
number, Yet this bird phones about the ad,
arranges to have.the car demonstrated, then
says he’s been hired-to kill a man whose iden-
tity. he couldn’t have known until the call was
made. I’m afraid we may be dealing with a nut
—a psychopathic killer!” ‘
“That makes it tougher,” Sergeant Hamil-
ton said. :
“A lot tougher,” the lieutenant agreed.
“Running down that kind isn’t like going
after someone who has reasonably. . normal
reactions.”
THEY requestioned the girl, back and forth
over the jumble of her one hour of terror.
Out of it came two items of possible value:
somewhere in Whittier, she recalled, the killer
had talked of having a car repaired in a local
garage, paying a $21 repair bill—and then
having to return the vehicle because the work
had been poorly done. “ad
Also, en route, he had feferred to pottery
manufacture, implying he either. owned or
supervised a pottery plant.
They returned Miss McCormick to her
North Hollywood home and talked to her
cousin, but the television official could recall
only that Kmiec, in picking up the girl, had
expressed the hope he would soon have $2745
as a result of his trip into town.
The victim, according to Miss McCormick,
shared a’ Beverly Hills apartment with Alec...
Milne, a jet test pilot for Lockheed Aircraft.
The sheriff’s homicide men found Milne,
apprised by phone of their coming, awaiting
them in stunned disbelief in the smartly furn-
ished bachelor quarters. a .
“Why, Andy asked me to come along with
him—he thought this business of going down
to the Biltmore to meet his prospective buyer
‘kind of odd,” the wide-shouldered jet . pilot
said. “I told him I couldn’t make it—I was
taking in a football game. Maybe Andy had a
premonition. He said to me, ‘What if this man
pays me and then shoots me and helps him-
self to the car and money?’ I supposed he was
kidding as usual; he was a great guy, always
joking.”
Milne led them to thé phone and indicated
.a big memo pad bearing a penciled scrawl.
“I was here’ when Andy got the call about
the ad and I’m sure that was the name the
fellow gave him.” ;
The detectives studied the hurried writing.
The name appeared to be “Garrett.” A first
name had also been jotted down, but it was
illegible. ;
Milne flatly declared that his friend was
without an enemy; had no romantic entangle-
ments that might cause a vengeful husband or
rival suitor to plot his destruction. He didn’t
smoke or drink, didn’t gamble, he owed no
money, he’d received no threats.
“Andy was’ really a simple, peaceable, hard-
working guy. He liked to hunt and fish—
anything outdoors. He was planning to use
the money he got for the car to buy a lot
and build.a house.” :
The test pilot added that Kmiec had gone
to work for a Wilshire Boulevard insurance
firm 11 months ago, after deciding not to join
his brothers in the roofing business. Andy had
been stationed at Fresno during the war.
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THAT DIDN'T
‘m@ Arthur “Fish” Johnston, who
THE FISH
GET
AWAY
used to swim with Al Capone’s-
mob, was arrested in Chicago re-
cently by the FBI (along with the
two fraidy-cat flounders half seen
at the left). The three men had
been in court earlier that day
where they were on trial on
charges of thefts from interstate
shipments. When court was re-
cessed they piled into a car and
drove out to Johnston’s apart-
ment. The FBI was right behind
them. Johnston and his two
cronies barely had enough time to
pour themselves a drink when the
FBI men broke down the, door,
looked around and found more
than $1,000,000 worth of addi-
tional stolen: goods cached away.
Through the phone book the deputies lo-
cated one of the insurance company officials
at his home—and again the same story; no
enemies, no trouble, nothing but praise for
the clean-cut, industrious murder victim.
The officers returned to the Los, Angeles
Hall of Justice and checked in with Sheriff’s
Captains K. E. Irving and Floyd Rosenberg.
The story had broken too late for the
afternoon papers but radio and _ television
stations were broadcasting lengthy accounts of
the apparently senseless crime.
had been sounding off all evening with tips
and suggestions from helpful citizens.
One of the callers was Kurt Kreuger, the
motion picture actor, who said he had been
contacted by phone regarding his Cadillac El
Dorado convertible, which he had advertised
for sale for $7250.
LIKE Andrew Kmiec, Krueger had used only
his phone number in the ad, no address.
The call had come Thursday, the man asking
that Kreuger meet him at the Biltmore at
4:30 the same afternoon. The actor agreed,
but when he Said hé planned to pick up an
associate en route the other grew noticeably
cool and said he would call again the follow-
ing morning. -The call never came.
If the sheriff’s men needed anything further
to convince them Andy Kmiec’s slaying was
without rhyme or reason, the actor’s disclos-
ure settled it. The dead man could as well
have been Kurt Kreuger; luck simply had
favored one and deserted the other.
But what was the purpose behind this eerie
prowling among the classified ads, this select-
ing of victims at random? Was it the work
of a maniac?-
The phones in the sheriff’s detective bureau.
Had he attempted to lure any other people?
The detectives asked themselves even more
obvious questions: Would he kill again? If
so, who would be next?
The buzzer sounded. It was Police Lieu-
tenant Robert Coveney, chief of detectives in
adjoining Burbank.
_“T’ve got a robbery .in my bailiwick,” Cove-
ney said. “Judging from your bulletins, it’s
the same man, same M. O.—except he didn’t
kill and the ad he answered wasn’t about a
car. Victim’s a woman. She reported it
yesterday.”
Hamilton and Lovretovich drove to Bur-
bank and Lieutenant Coveney accompanied
them to the Hollywood Way home of Miss -
Belle Brooks, blonde, 38-year-old pianist-
organist, where the woman told her story.
She was still shaken by the events of the
day before. She said she had received a call
yesterday morning from a “Mr. -Barger” in
connection with her ad in the paper offering
her ranch mink coat and six-skin Russian
sable stole. for sale.
The man said he wished to give his wife
the mink for Christmas.
Miss Brooks gave him: her address and he
arrived 30 minutes later. She was in pajamas
and. robe, but his speedy arrival interrupted
her plan to dress.
The man talked affably for a while, then he
took out a long-barreled gun and ordered her
into the bedroom, forcing her to lie on the
bed. He used a black gummy tape to bind
her wrists behind her back, then. trussed her
ankles., He tugged at her pajamas, she said,
but if his intentions were to attack her; he
abandoned ‘the notion when the phone rang.
He cut the wires, then rummaged through the
house, Once, when she whimpered in terror,
he raised the gun, threatening to bring it
down on her head. Then he gagged her with
a stocking.
Finally; with the stole shoved into a small
suitcase he found in a closet, and with the
mink draped over an arm, he departed. With
him also went her German-made wrist watch
and a fine mother-of-pearl cigarette case. She -
worked ‘herself free presently and, from the
home of a neighbor, phoned the police.
Other than calling himself “Barger,” the
bespectacled bandit had said only that he was
“fa machinist,” she recalled.
Miss Brooks’ description of the man dif-
fered in two respects from that of Andrew
Kethiec’s slayer. He appeared short, she said—
about 5-5 or 5-6. And he weighed about 145
pounds, She believed his eyes were grey or
blue and his tanned face was heavily seamed.
His hands were calloused and . horny—the
hands of a laborer.
H4M!LTon and Lovretovich agreed with
Coveney—the marauder was the same
man who had killed Kmiec and the blonde _
Miss Brooks was lucky to be alive.
The deputies gave little thought to the dis-
crepancy in the fugitive’s height and weight.
Miss McCormick had seen the killer at night,
and erect only momentarily. © |
Coveney concurred in Hamilton’s , sugges-
tion—to withhold mention in the papers of
this latest development. There was no way of
reading the mind of the phantom of the ad
sections, and premature disclosures regarding
Miss Brooks might endanger her life.
The following morning Miss McCormick
was taken out to reenact her fearful ride. The
reenactment helped to jog her memory—she
recalled a reference by the killer to his chil-
dren; one of them, he said, had shattered the
picture tube of his television and it was now
being replaced. j
The investigators were not without mis-
givings. Their quarry had shown himself a
master of deception, and such a man would
hardly drop so’ many self-revealing tidbits—
unless they were deliberately false and planned
to throw off pursuit.
All day, at precise intervals, sheriff and po--
lice radios droned out descriptions of the
cream-colored convertible and -the wanted
man. Meanwhile the Whittier area was being
worked over by teams of deputies. ‘
In the sheriff’s detective bureau the phones
continued to buzz. Two more callers reported
having been contacted during the week in
connection with car ads,- but for one reason
or another the suggested meeting at the Bilt-
more had failed to come off.
The dead man’s 28-year-old brother and a
brother-in-law flew in from Indiana—as help-
less as anyone to supply a motive.
Late Sunday night the phone rang in the
Parks home in North Hollywood. It was for
Miss McCormick, ;
“Talk,” a man said curtly, “and you get the
same treatment your boyfriend did. Keep your
mouth shut!” ‘
Sheriff’s Chief of Detectives Gordon Bowers
threw a guard around the house and ordered
round-the-clock surveillance. In Burbank,
Lieutenant Coveney followed suit, posting
men near the Brooks hame. .
Even as these measures were being carried
out, the terrified Miss McCormick received a
second call.
“Remember what I told you, sister. Open
your mouth and it’s curtains!”
At 8 Mond:
bartender, goin
customary park
East Los Angel
admire the stre:
Then he saw t}
rear fender. He
and saw that s
bloody hands on
“This is one
himself.
. It was. It was
Sheriff’s men
diana plates we
California plate
dyed vehicle, on
Cormick’s red c
disturbed, and A)
The technician
inch, The print rn
Becker, found a
on the rear view
ing wheel, and a
front door.
WITNESSES
convertible |
day. Had the we
possession of a }
an hour or two?
The California |
ban owner who
missing. Meanwhi
completed a stud:
cluding the prescr:
teen hundred circi
were now being
optometrists and
Southern Californi
The lenses we:
correction. The n
sighted and, witho
culty reading.
The left lens wa
both were _pittec
glasses worn by a
be similarly peppe
A pair of glasse
hopefully, had tra
Richard Loeb in
nap-murder of you
ago.
Planned as a “pe
trayed the slayers
were traced to Leo
A canvass of Lc
dealers and manuf:
way with opening
search took in car
servicemen, and qu
clude dry cleaning «
the killer might brir
Then, on Wedne:
chiropractor of sut
reported that the n
two hours in his
afternoon !
The chiropractor
after the other e
advertised Cadillac.
Introducing hims«
bespectacled seamy-{
wanting the car for
pected to join him
length of pottery m
but his wife failed
finally, saying he'd |
neither showed up.
Dr. Perrin’s descri
In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted