California, C, 1949-1994, Undated

ngewe
oprietress ositively identified Cook and Mr. an abs

eae three Postomers who had been 1n her establishment cee |

between four and five P.M. On New Year's Day, 1951. Tighter

Pe ee =

i i hile Killer
and tighter the net was being drawn, but meanwhl!
Cook ha off and running—tunning and kidnaping and

On the pleasant morning of January 6, 1951, Deputy She
Homer Waldrip of Blythe, California, had a hunch. An alert of-

i f the fugitive rans bell in the depu *s mind. He’d
ison this man o metime etre: he remembered, when Cook
had been an attendant at a Blythe filling station. More, Waldrip
remembered that a former pal of Cook’s still lived at a nearby
motel. A talk with this character might come up with some-
thing, reasoned Sheriff Waldrip, so he buckled on his gun,
climbed into his car, and started for the motel.

“well, what d’ y@ know! A real, live cop!” That was the
greeting Waldrip received after he’d knocked at the motel door
and it had been opened by William Edward Cook himself!
And there was no mistaking the quality of the welcome, either.
It was delivered with a sneet over the unwavering blue steel
rouzzie of an automatic. “Come in, copper! ll take your gun,

“you know I'm going to kill you anyway, so I don’t mind
talking.” With Waldrip at the wheel and Killer Cook watch-

seat with a gun, his wife and kids were in the back. And do
you know what those jerks did? All at once I look up and the
man and woman are § gnaling each other in the rear view
mirror! Then he jams on the brakes, aud she grabs me around
the neck! So I had to kill ’em, ya see. The kids? Aw, they

nerves. So I gave them the same medicine. Say, I think this is

as far as you 80, buddy. Pull off the road and stop.”
They had coursed some 40 miles down the Imperial Valley,

“Out!” ordered the bandit, qihereupon he forced the sheriff

to lie face down in a gulley, tied his hands behind him, and

propriated his wallet. “I won't bother to tie your feet, be-

4 BA

ee s ‘Killer Cook

cause I’m going to put a bullet through your head anyway.

__-For long minutes Sheriff-Waldrip lay waiting for the blind-
ing crash ‘which would end his life. Instead, after. an interval,
he heard the police car start up again and roar off into the
distance. Then he freed himself, and after trudging six miles
down the highway he met two officers of the Yuma, Arizona,
Border Patrol. The three then attempted to overtake Cook.

Twenty miles farther down the highway Sheriff Waldrip’s
car was discovered beside the road. The red emergency light
was flashing and the motor was running, but no one was in
sight. Using both cars, the officers continued the search until,
about 10 miles farther along, near the town of Ogilby, they
found the body of Killer Cook’s sixth victim. He was person-
able, 32-year-old Robert H. Dewey, 4 salesman from Seattle,
who had taken off alone in his car for a camping trip. Shot in
the back and side, young Dewey’s body lay face down by the
side of the road.

The magnitude of the search which was being generated for
the apprehension of Billy Cook seems almost without com-
parable parallel. Anticipating that Cook would make a break
to cross the border into Mexico, an informal Board of Strategy
composed of FBI Special Agent in Charge E. C. Richardson
of the San Diego office, San Diego Police Chief A. BE. Jansen,
and Sheriff Bert Strand began to function, co-ordinating mas-
sive search efforts throughout the Pacific Southwest.

As time went on and additional FBI teams swarmed into
the area, Mr. Richardson moved his headquarters to El Centro,
hard up against the international border. And as the tension
mounted even the faraway Los Angeles FBI office advised that
they were getting reports of Cook’s supposed whereabouts
“about once every five minutes.”

Large armed groups described as “citizen’s armies,” usually
under the direction of state, county, OT municipal authorities,
were fine-tooth-combing vast areas of desolate terrain. Heli-
copters and airplanes were employed in the search. Road
blocks, manned 24 hours @ day, sprang up like mushrooms.
Short-wave radios crackled and sputtered with reports and or-
ders, With the permission and co-operation of Mexican all-
thorities, a six-jeep Convoy of FBI special agents crossed the
border and carried out an intensive search of the mountain
roads of Baja, California. Almost simultaneously, 300 Mexi-
can peace officers in 30 automobiles roared into the city of
Mexicali (population 80,000), corked it up like a vacuum bot-
tle, and conducted a house-to-house search from which not
even a cucaracha could have escaped. It was, in short, the


most far-flung; namerically ‘overwhelming, nsi

. With 100,000 eyes looking for him and 1,000 guns primed
to pot him, Billy Cook proceeded to do something which most . @-
people considered beyond the likely limits of possibility: First, 3 |

t :

in the history of the Southwest. ~ *<-

he abandoned the murdered Dewey’s car 50 miles scuth of
Mexicali, where it was found by Guy Woodward, chief of po-
lice of El Centro. Immediately afterward, now additionally

armed with two rifles he’d stolen from his last victim, Cook »

stopped and took captive two El Centro prospectors—For-
rest Dameron, 32; and James Burke, 33. The incredible thing

was not that the stocky murderer was able to stop and hold -

Dameron and Burke at gun point.

“When we start through customs,” Cook ordered Dameron,
who was driving the maroon Studebaker with Burke in the
front seat beside him and the armed killer in the back, “don’t
slow down. Wave at the officer, but drive on. And if anybody
tries to stop us, step on it!”

The strategy worked like a charm, and soon the three were
lost in the Mexican night—really lost.

“I think we’d better spend the night here beside the road so
we can see where we are in the morning,” suggested Burke.*

“Nuts!” screamed the furious Cook. “I think you guys are - a

trying to cross me up, and let me tell you, I’m beginning to
smell that old blood and gun smoke again, so you'd better be
careful!”

The merciless Cook held Dameron and Burke terrified cap-
tives from six A.M. on January 7, until four P.M., on January
14—seven horror-filled days and nights for the two innocent
men whose families had all but given them up for dead.

And then, in the sleepy little Mexican town of Santa Ro-
salia, nearly 400 miles below the border, the slender thread of
fate snapped for Killer Cook.

“J will take that gun, sefior! And you——you would look
more handsome with your hands in the air!”

It was a courteous speech. But any kind of speech backed up
by a .44 pressed hard against the 14th vertebra is likely to
have authority. And that was precisely the situation when a
Mexican policeman came up behind Cook in a little Santa
Rosalia café, stuck his .44 in the murderer’s back, reached
under his arm and removed the 32 from the waistband of the
trousers. The “wanted” circulars printed in Spanish with which

the FBI had flooded Mexico had accomplished their mission. |
Minutes before, a detail of police had been driving down j

os

the main street of the little town in a atrol wagon. They ha
passed Cook and his captives one in the ore ae
tion. Deciding against an attempt at immediate apprehension,
the Mexicans had first parked their car. Then they had walked

_ back up the street, stopping to check small business establish--
ments here and there, and finally entered the little restaurant
where Cook, Dameron and Burke sat at a table about to order.

But the order was given by the Mexican policeman, not
Killer Cook; and it was the end of the road for one of the ‘most
heartless and vicious killers in the contemporary annals
of American crime.

Three days later, at 3:10 o’clock in the afternoon, the Mexi-
can authorities handed William Edward Cook over to FBI
men at the border. And on December 12th of the following
year, under due process of law, he died at San Quentin.

2

oy


ue Trial by Ordeal

cuting and judicial agencies, the monster-makers of our
time. They create a demand and then cater to it with a
mass-produced product, machine-tooled and phony.

Let me illustrate. Bill Cook emerged from a nightmare
childhood and a prison term broke and friendless. He was
in his early twenties. He was short and squat, and one of
his evelids drooped. There was no warmth in him, no feeling
of belonging. He was on his own in a world he regarded as
hostile. He got a gun, returned to crime, petty stuff. Crime
put him on the run. In making a getaway he kidnaped a
family taking a trip in their car. He warned them not to
signal for help. In passing through a small town one of the
older children saw an officer and began shouting for help.
The bodies of the family were found in an abandoned mine.
Bill had slain them. One of the greatest manhunts in the
history of the country was launched.

Bill made his way to California. The body of a salesman
whose car Bill had taken was found in a southern California
desert. The hunt for him was intensified. He was caught,
finally, in Mexico, after having kidnaped two campers and
taken them with him as hostages. Tried by the federal goy-
ernment for the kidnaping of the slain family, he was sent
to Alcatraz for three hundred years. Unsatisfied, California
brought him to trial for the killing of the salesman. He was
speedily doomed.

Two days before Bill was executed here in San Quentin’s
gas chamber a California daily of large circulation published
one of those breathless horror stories that are so common.
Part of it read:

“He [Warden Harley Teets] called Cook ‘the strangest
killer we have ever had in condemned row. He is surly and’
belligerent and refuses to have anything to do with anyone.
The longest speech he made was on the day he arrived. I

29
The Monster Myth 1

grected him with “Hello, Bill” and he just snarled back,
“You can go to hell.” ’

“The other twenty condemned killers in the Row regard
Cook as a monster, Teets said. ‘Not only do they refuse to
talk to him but they even clam up when guards try to get
them to talk about him, the Warden said. ‘The idea of a
man murdering a whole family is unusual even in this place,
said Teets, ‘and the men have no use for him.’

“Cook has gained twenty-five pounds since he has been
in the death house and spends most of his time reading
Zane Grey books. He follows the printed lines with a fore-
finger and moves his lips when he reads.” ;

The remarkable thing about that story is that so much
hooey could be compressed into such a small space. I know
the Woanlen didn’t say what he is quoted as saying. Putting
handy words in a prison official’s mouth is an old stunt, but
how cynical and hypocritical and brazen can you get when
reporting “news”? The truth is that we did not consider
Cook a monster; as far as we were concerned he was just
another guy. We got along with him and he got along with
us quite well.

Bill Cook wasn’t fond of authority; neither was he ag-
gressively belligerent or defiantly surly. As a matter of fact;
he never once had trouble with any of the other condemned
men, nor was he ever charged with a violation of prison
rules. During exercise period he mingled with the rest of
us. I had more than one long talk with him. He read all
sorts of books without benefit of pointing finger or moving

lip and on the subject of geography, his passion, he was un-
questionably well informed. ; one

I'm not suggesting that Bill was really a “good boy. *
not saying he should have been patted on the head and tol<
to “go and sin no more.” I’m not for a moment insensible to

we En I HR FR

Ain cp A ARE a manna ere

: ot 6 s+ : bs
nicer Sie EEE NT PUT CMe Ree TUTOR E NEY parte ey (OTT AOS Pee

ALSO BY CARYL CHESSMAN: Cell 2455, Death Row

CARYL CHESSMAN

TRIAL

PRENTICE-HALL, INC.

ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS

957

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grew rapidly larger as the
ie bleak mine shaft where
isless than two miles from

i ot Cee ‘
Sina lg, ee

a ia

eee

—

: an che

KILLER’S FATHER, 72, made a radio appeal to
his son to surrender himself, philosophized after his
capture, “You never know where they will end up.”

SM Se

ES ein i.

. pathetic corpses of the
‘cep and contained about

children had been gagged

and trussed before they were murdered. Mosser was
found to have torn his hands loose from his bonds,
evidently in a last-minute lunge before he was shot.

red ‘ eee Suck ene TR be ty DOR rey ae *
paneer. pi Ce tae I Uf a ag

VICTIM’S TWIN BROTHER, Chris, alicutenant
at Albuquerqué whom Carl would have visited, ig
shown at funeral home where he identified bodies.

’ ae wa ? Fs
uJ ¥ - yt ee > ive
94 4 oa alt 2 te
‘

~GoNTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

“4

19


| with the Bad Ey@, conrmons sa

NE MORE AND

a

‘uv the home of Cook’s friend near Blythe, ey, Seattle salesman and ex-GI, whose
ated by Cook himself, who kidnaped him car Cook stopped, probably with dep-
sn tied up in desert instead of killing him. uty’s car. He killed Dewey, took ear.

ation oe:

ARSENAL was ¢
Sen Mo

tam eh

v

aptured
tales. after inspect.
m the air, landed at Santa
Mm IN car, arrested him,

7

i ; ; ioe

t Damron MINE OFFICIAL Xavier Gonzalez

KIDNAPED THREE BEFORE THEY GOT. HIM

CIRCULARS on Cook were posted through the Southwest and
Mexico (above). Dewey’s murder spread pan‘c. Citizens avoided
lonely roads, “recognized” Cook from Albuque:que to Los Angeles,

where for two days police averaged a phone tip every four minvies.

(right), driving north, met Cook and of Tijuana, Mexico, was tippec. t» the whereabouts of
campers, hailed them. In remote Low- Cook by Gonzalez when latter saw nia picture in the
er California he had not heard news. papers. Morales anc Ccputy startea sovta in plane.

MW sith okie
PLEASED THRONG watched Cook’s “extendi-
tion” at Tijuana. Since the U.S. has no extradition
treaty with Mexico, he simply was pushed over the
border as an undesirable alien—and into U.S. hands.

AT BAY IN MEXICO,

ty Ny . ‘ 7
‘ ;

COOK BLINKS HIS GOOD EYE AGAINST PHOTOGRAPHERS’ FLASHES

4

0 SY

2 ns eect

a hed ted

a
id

me
Kies

Se eS #
$7 sme a

SMALL CROWD, which grew rapidly larger as the the tar-paper shack of Cook’s father. A Joplin fire-
news spread, gathered at the bleak mine shaft where man, wearing a mask against the shaft’s poisonous
the bodies were found. This is less than two miles from gases, was lowered into it to recover the five bodies.

KILLER’S FATHER, 72: made a radia
his son to surrender himself, philosophized
capture, “You never know where they will

sett PRG Neh.

oo

i vit igh oon! ” :

ce ar Bae
THE SHAFT that held the pathetic corpses of the and trussed hefore they were murdered. Mosser was

VICTIM’S TWIN BROTH ER, Chris, a!
Mosser family was 50 feet deep and contained about found to have torn h® hands loose from his bonds, at Albuquerque whom Carl would have

c : . : where he identif
1S feet of water.-Even the children had been gagged evidently ina last-minute lunge hefore he was shot. shown at funeral home wh i

CONTINUED ON NERY pracy


; ‘The Kid with th the Bad Eye « conTiNuED

LUCKY DEPUTY Homer Waldrip, here with his
wife, went to the home of Cook’s friend near Blythe,
was confronted by Cook himself, who kidnaped him
and left him tied up in desert instead of killing him.

nee oe

x
Pa

ay Ve f

UNWILLING COMPANIONS were Campers Forkest Damron
(right) and James Burke, who picked up Cook below border, were
his prisoners eight days. At night they did not dare jump him; since
one eye was always open, they could not tell when he was asleep.

HE NILLED OnE ‘MORE AND ‘DNAPED ) THREE BEFORE. THE

bis:
De

=

rl

eR as

SIXTH VICTIM was Robert Dew-
ey, Seattle salesman and ex-GI, whose
car Cook stopped, probably with dep-
uty’s car. He killed Dewey, took car.

CIRCULARS on Cov... weve e prsted’t
Mexico (abore). Dewey's murder spre
lonely roads, “recegnizec’” Cook fram/

where for two day» police averazed a pl

MINE OFFICIAL Navies
(right), driving north, met Cook and
campers, hailed them. Ja remote Low-
er California he had not hicardé news.

ov.zalez NERVY CHIEF C
of Tijuana, Mexico’ wat
Cook by Gonzalez whr
papers. Morales ana ae

COOK’S ARSENAL was captured
with him when Morales, after inspect-
ing towns from the air, landed at Santa
Rosalia, saw him in car, arrested him.

PLEASED THRONG watched Cook’s .“extradi-
tion” at Tijuana. Sinceghe U.S, has no extradition
treaty with Mexico, he simply was pushed over the
border as an undesirable alien—and into U.S. hands. ,

ng

_ AT BAY IN MEXICO, COOK BLINKS HIS GOOD EYE

FIVE VAULTS for the five coft'us *
up in the small cemetery near ana

week. A mass grave for the entire fam)
men in the background.: Lapel ae chi

¥

4

AGA’ tST_!


pe een menorenninamer

about
ise the
out to
bought
ie back
led the
cans of
eturned

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and the
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Tennes-
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a “9
prior to
ight and
n the old
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iny and
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| up just
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auttil June

drinking,
orning of
le mother
_ his room.
dked with
‘ued to his
ho was up
, Earlean’s
r” At this
© for about

anything
ver argued
h oeen
se inti-
it went into
June 3, the

igen! ; 6 eal Ry a ile lea

PEOPLE v. COOPER 153
Cite as 3 Cal. Rptr. 148 =e

landlady and two men who lived in the hotel
were present. Earlean was in bed. “TAJn-
other girl * * * brought Iarlean some
soup. Earlean’s been sick * * ¥* She
didn’t want the soup but she wanted a
drink, so I told her, well, I'll buy her a drink
on the condition that she drink the soup.”
Defendant sent the other men for sherry.
The landlady and the other woman (Mrs.
Adams) left. Tarlean complained that her
legs were sore. The other men returned
and the four drank a fifth of a gallon of
sherry. The other men left. “T told Ear-
fean I’d take her on—and * * * Thada
fifth in my room, but the wine in her room
was gone. * * * [She] asked me to rub
her legs for her. So I told her, ‘Well,
come on over:in my room and Ill rub them
over there’ * * * I wanted to sleep
with her * * * Maybe having inter-
course, maybe not. * * * I tried all day
long to have a climax with Alice and lI
couldn’t. I was too drunk * * * I fig-
ured that if I * * * slept in her [Ear-
lean’s] bed with her, somebody’d be coming

down banging on the door and annoying us
ee en

Earlean, who was dressed in a nightgown
and robe, went with defendant to his room.
Defendant took her radio with them be-
cause his was broken. Earlean “sot in bed
* * * and laid on her stomach and I put
some mentholatum on the back of her legs
and rubbed * * * andthen * * * we
continued to drink. * * *

“I got in bed with her and I tried to have
‘ntercourse with her * * * ([S]he didn’t
object to anything I did to her. That’s—
that’s what made this—made this killing
screwy. But anyway * * * JT couldn’t
reach a climax. * * * So then I got up
and * * * I guess she was * * *
daydreaming or listening to the radio
* * * So I took the necktic and—well, it
took me about 15 minutes to slide it under-
neath her head so she wouldn’t suspect any-
thing, * * * So I looped it around her
neck * * * as if I was carressing her.
+ * * T just pulled it as tight as I could
and * * * she was quiet and I released

3 Cal.Rptr.—10%4

the pressure on her throat, and ae cit a
she started breathing heavy again, * * *
so I went over and I filled * * * the
basin up with water with the intention of
bringing her over and submerging her nose
and mouth in the water, because I know
darn well then that she couldn’t come back
to life if I kept her head under water. But
when I pulled her off the bed, she was too
heavy for me. Bi ies

“So I let her lay there for a few min-
utes and I took what was left of her wine
in her glass—I drank that. And _ then
what was left of my wine in my glass—I
drank that. And then I started drinking
out of the bottle.” With much effort de-
fendant dragged Earlean onto the bed
again. “I let go of the tie about three
times, and each time I let go she started
breathing again. * * * [S]o I tied it in
a knot. * * * So then I tried to have
intercourse with her and I couldn't, so
* * %* J Jaid down beside her for a while
and her tongue was hanging out. * * -
And her tongue annoyed me for some rea-
son or other, so * * * I took my pillow
and laid it across her face, and then I
laid on top of her and the pillow. * ..*
Then I decided that I couldn’t get rid of
her—that it was all over for me. So I
got up and I got dressed and I pulled the
blanket up across her body.

To the question, “What prompted you to
strangle Earlean?” defendant replied,
“That I cannot answer. I don’t know.”

Earlean “had the keys to her room
pinned onto her robe ee: ©. J son-
templated the possibility of returning the
body to her room rather than have it
found in mine. So I got up and went to
her room, which had a padlock on “: * *
I unlocked the padlock and while I was do-
ing that, I heard a sound as if someone
were coming out of another room into the
hall, so I put the padlock and keys in my
pocket and returned to my room oe *
I threw the lock on my dresser and also the
keys. * * * ITput * * * the remain-
der of the fifth of wine * * * in my hip
pocket. Then I turned out the lights, pad-


OM

vee

“soom and * *

PEOPLE v. COOPER 151
Cite as 8 Cal.Rptr. 148

of defendant’s blood showed that it contain-
ed .10 per cent alcohol. This would indi-
cate that. defendant’s blood alcohol con-
tent would have been about .16 per, cent
four hours before. The blood alcohol con-
tent which by custom is accepted as a test
of drunken driving is .15 per cent.

On the edge of the mattress in defend-
ant’s room was a stain of human blood too
small for classification as to type. De-
fendant pointed out another blood stain
on the carpet of his room near the hall
door. This stain was human blood of type
QO. Elvira Hay had type O blood; defend-
ant’s blood was type A.

Voluntary statements of defendant to the
police, which had been made and recorded
on June 4 and 6, 1959, were played to the
jury. Because defense counsel as to each
count argues the insufficiency of evidence
of deliberate and premeditated intent to
kill, the substance of defendant’s statements
will be here sct forth in the chronological
order of the events, feelings, and thoughts
described by him, rather than in the se-
quence in which the statements were made,
so that the manner in which the jury infer-
entially could have traced the development
of the intent necessary to constitute de-
liberate, premeditated murder may more
clearly appear.

Defendant stated that he met Elvira
“approximately two weeks prior to the date
of her death * * * I made it quite plain
to her that I wasn’t interested in buying a
woman, though I didn’t mind spending
money for drinks * * *, se she said
that was fine, we’d get some wine and
go up to her room and drink it, so we
bought a fifth of wine and went up to her
* after the wine was
consumed, then, of course, I started getting
amorous * * * and before we were
completely disrobed, she asked me for $5.
Well, if she’d have asked me outside, Td
have told her to go to hell * * * but by
that time I had gone too far and so I was
mad as the devil, but | gave her the 95,
but I was so mad that when I had inter-
course with her, I couldn’t reach a climax,

andI * * * got up and stormed out of
there, and between that day and the date
of her death, I think I saw her once or
twice, either on the street or in the hall-
way, but we had no further contact with

each other until the day of her death.
x ok OK)

At about 4 p. m. on August 2, 1958, de-
fendant went to a party given by Elvira’s
daughter in the hotel where defendant lived.
“lP|rior to this, I had been drinking heavy
and constantly for well over a month be-
cause I was unemployed, and I * * *
never got out of bed practically for any-
thing, but to go out and get another drink—
another bottle—so I was—my mind was
pretty foggy.” At the party defendant met
Elvira again. After two or three hours
“my mind finally got so foggy from drink-
ing I had to get some sleep, sol * s*
went back to my room and went to bed.
I don’t know how long I slept; when I
woke up, I had another drink—I had a bot-
tle right by my bed; I got up and walked
around the hall to see who was up
* * *” Elvira was in the hall looking
from a window toward the hotel where she
and John (“Tennessee”) Fry lived. “ioe
said that she was watching for Ten-
messes *% * * and * * * that she
was afraid he might kill her, so I told her,
‘Well, he can’t find you in my room,’ so she
came tomy room * * * and laid on the
bed fully dressed and we had a few drinks
and I started getting fresh with her—she
didn’t object to my feeling her * * * but
* %* * she had on pedal pushers, and |
tried to get her to take them off to sce if I
could get some, and she wouldn’t do it, and
I just got mad at her all over again, so I
took a necktie belonging to myself and eased
it under her head without her knowledge,
while I was holding her and carressing her
and everything so she didn’t notice any-
thing, and when I got one end of the tie
under her head, I looped the other end
around her throat and shoved that under in

the opposite direction so I had a hand hold. .

* * * J just laid there for several min-
utes, trying to make up my mind—the con-

2

De ee a ee

3
s &


oree ey
a

sequences of what I was doing was so great
that I was just on the verge—at least I’m
convinced—I don’t know how I—what I
would have done if she hadn’t felt that, but
then of trying to
ease the tie back off and forgetting about
this whole thing, but Just then she must
have felt the cloth around her neck because
tt ® gh jumped. She said, ‘What's
going on here r, so I—she had me cold then
69.27 88 Fy just jerked. J said, ‘Now
you know,’ I helg it until she Ceased moy-
ing, * * #»

In response to the question, “why did you
do that to her ?” defendant said, “that
doesn’t sound like a logical excuse, but for
one thing, I was mad and J intended to rape
her, so I killed her and then [| raped her,
ware @. T wos mad because * * * she
acts like she’s not a hustler, and * * x
leads you on, Iets you buy drinks and every-
thing, but still she’s going to demand money
at the last * * x [S]he wasn’t straight-
forward in that manner,”

After strangling Elvira with the tie, “TJ
couldn’t Possibly have her come to life
then * * x I’d have been in the peniten-
tiary anyway, so I turned the water on in
my sink * * x and held her head down
in the water * * x till—I know it was
impossible for anyone to hold their breath
that long, * * x So then I just pulled
her out of the sink and threw her back on
the bed, [ undressed her and I raped her,
then I got the razor and lathered her up and
shaved her all down here,” Defendant
committed various Sexual acts upon the
body, intermittently sleeping, waking and
drinking and Moving the body about the
room. During these Procedures blood from
the body got on the mattress and the floor,

is ee had always read where it
takes a human body three days for decom-
Position to set in, so I figured I had a couple
days grace before I’d have to get rid of the
body, but when J woke up during the day
[August 3] * * » there was just the
weirdest smell in the room * * % I fig-
ured I would have to get her out of there
ina hurry.” In an attempt to dissect the

16M a diy

3 CALIFORNIA

PORTER
body defendant made the incisions about |
the right knee but “I gave up because the’
knife was too dull, * * «* 7 went out to.
three different gtocery stores, J bought |
two cans of lye in each Store. I came back
and * * x put her in the tub, filled the |
tub with water, and emptied the SiX Cans of |

lye in the tub,” Defendant then returned |
to his room.

Defendant further stated that after Mat. .
tie Williams’ discovery of the body and the |
summoning of the Police, a crowd collected
with “everybody talking, everybody knew ,
all the answers,” “CS]ome other guy |
Stepped up and he claimed that he had seen
Tennessee beating his wife [Elvira] up the |
Previous night * «* So the police |
TE were ali hot after finding Tennes.
oe, 60° 8 8 wT melted into the back. |
ground * * * 7 spent the next couple |
days * * x keeping myself unavailable,” |

Thereafter, “about two months prior [to
Killing Earlean] I was- drunk one night and |
thought about turning myself in on the old |
Case [the killing of Elvira] and J didn’t |
want to go through Southern Station, so I |
walked all the Way down to Kearny and |
Washington [the San Francisco Hall of |
Justice], and by the time J got to Kearny |
and Washington, I had sobered up just |
enough to fear the Consequences of what |
I had done, so I just walked * * x back
home.”

From the night of May 31 until June |
3, 1959, defendant spent his time drinking, |
dozing, and reading. On the Morning of
June 3, “my girl friend” Alice, “the mother |
of my son,” Visited defendant in his room,
At about 9 P. m. defendant walked with
Alice to her bus stop. He returned to his
hotel, “looked tosee * * x who was up
and around,” and “saw a light in Earlean’s
Toom. So I knocked on her door.” At this
time “I had known her by sight for about
two weeks, but J didn’t know anything |
about. her,” Defendant had Never argued
with Earlean, nor been alone with her, been |
Sexually intimate or discussed Sexual inti-
macy with her, When defendant went into |
Earlean’s room on the night of June 3, the

pet

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154 3 CALIFORNIA REPORTER

locked the door and went down on the side-
walk * * * I must have spent anywhere
from five to fifteen minutes trying to make
up my mind whether to hitchhike out of
town or to—what to do. * * * I kept
thinking of what I had done and the fact
that there was no excuse for it, and I also
thought of my son, and the future compli-
cations that would arrive if I should run
and elude the police and find myself in the
position of committing the same type crime
over again with no motive.” Defendant
considered going to the Hall of Justice but,
recalling the occasion two months before
when he had walked there with the thought
of “turning myself in” but had not done so,
“T didn’t figure that would be the right
course to take * * * because I’d prob-
ably change my mind * * * soI went to
Southern Station. * * *

“T asked for Homicide. So the patrol-
man informed me that * * * there was
no Homicide man on duty at the moment.
I asked him what time they come on. He
said about 8:00 o’clock in the morning.
He says, ‘Is it something urgent? Is there
anything we can do for you?’ So I said,
‘No, thank you. I'll return in the morn-
ing.’ So I turned around and walked out.
After I was on the sidewalk I turned
around and went back in * * * I told
him that I had better * * * straighten
this out now * * * And I said, ‘Because
I might change my mind by the morning.’
Which I’m quite sure I would have. * *
I informed him that I had killed a woman
and she was on my bed * * * JT handed
them the keys to my room. * * * And
although they seemed slightly skeptical, one
* * * said, ‘Well, we'll check on it’ * *
And I informed them * * * that I had
come to them because I had also killed one
previously. * * * I mentioned the fact
that I was also guilty of a crime for which
another man was in San Quentin * *”

[1,2] Defendant’s contention that the
prosecution must establish that the mur-
ders were of the first degree by evidence
other than his extrajudicial statements is
without merit. “[T]he corpus delicti in a

case involving first degree murder consists

of two elements, namely, the death of the .

victim and the existence of some criminal
agency as the cause. [Citations.] Once
prima facie proof of the corpus delicti is
made, the extrajudicial statements, admis-
sions, and confessions of a defendant may
be considered in determining whether all
the elements of the crime have been estab-
lished.” (People v. Duncan (1959), 51 Cal.
2d 523, 528 [1, 2], 334 P.2d 858.) “The
corpus delicti of the crime of murder hav-
ing been established by independent evi-
dence, * * * extrajudicial statements
of the accused * * * may be used to
establish the degree of the crime.” (Peo-
ple v. Miller (1951), 37 Cal.2d 801, 806 [4],
236 P.2d 137, rejecting thé contention that
“the prosecution was bound to establish
by independent evidence the corpus delicti
of the crime of attempted robbery, as well
as the corpus delicti of the crime of mur-
der, before [defendant’s] * * * extra-

judicial statements concerning the * ¥* -

attempted robbery could be used to prove
the degree of the murder.”)

[3-5] Here defendant’s lucid, intro-
spective description of his mental and emo-
tional processes is sufficient evidence to
support the jury’s determinations that the
murders were deliberate and premeditated
in the dictionary meanings of those words,
which are their significations in the statute
(Pen.Code, § 189) which defines first de-
gree murder. (People v. Thomas (1945),
25 Cal.2d 880, 898 [13], 156 P.2d 7; Peo-
ple v. Caldwell (1955), 43 Cal.2d 864, 869
[3-4], 279 P.2d 539.) Defendant urges
that the evidence of his intoxication ‘“‘is
substantial evidence of the lack of premedi-
tation and deliberation.” His contention
is correct; but the weight to be accorded
such evidence was for the appraisal of the
trier of fact (People v. Murphy (193+), 1
Cal.2d 37, 40 [2], 32 P.2d 635) and since in
the circumstances the jury could conclude
that the homicides were the result of de-
liberation and premeditation we cannot
accede to defendant’s request that we re-
duce the degree of the murders (People
v. Deloney (1953), 41 Cal.2d 832, 837 [1]),

264 P.2d

prevent th:
fendant \
intoxicants
cific intent

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his slow a
strangle hi
aware of h

time-consu!
sure their
description
supra, at |
637 of 32 |
4 Cal.2d 46
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tion witnes
before her
which he k

[6] Del

structing tl

petration o:

2.

“AIL mu
means of
or by any
and prem
mitted in
attempt 1
bery, bur,
ishable w
Code, is >
all other
second dc
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petration
rape, rob!
act punis!
Penal Coc
whether t
tentional «
“Rape i
accomplis!
the wife o
sists but
force or

is prevent

great ani
companied
sailant to
threats.

“An att:
of two el;
tent to co!
ineffectual
sion.

“Tn deter
act was (


~ ON

little wishful bragging.”
After Greig was charged with mur-

_der, Inspectors Duffy and Jewell found

a shop where he had purchased the mur-
der knife. He had bought it, not six
months before, but the day of the
murder!

Further investigation revealed that
Greig had been married. The woman,
six years his senior, had left him a few
days later and had obtained an annul-
ment. Several times after that Greig
had accosted her and threatened to turn
her into “fish bait.”

At Greig’s preliminary hearing on
December 20th, 1938, a crowd of sev-
eral hundred men gathered in front of
the courtroom of Municipal Judge Chris
Fox muttering “string him up!” The
police quickly dispersed the gathering.

2 HEADLESS SWEETHEARTS
(Continued from page 27)

115 or 120 pounds, She had small
hands, a vaccination scar on her right
arm and a hammer thumb on her left
hand.

This information brought no im-
mediate response from the Sacramento
public. But on January Sth, the police
of suburban Albany, on the coast near
Oakland, reported that the description
was almost identical to that of a miss-
ing Albany girl.

Police Inspector Arthur Smith told
Undersheriff Knoll over the telephone
that he had become interested when he
learned that the torso murder victim
had a left hammer thumb. So had the
Albany girl, he said. She also had a
vaccination mark on her right arm.

The missing girl was Sally Ellis, an

extremely pretty brunette of 19, She _

had gone out on a date with an Oak-
land man on the evening of October
3rd, and her foster-parents:had not seen
her since, They were inclined to suspect
that she had eloped with her escort;
and they waited: several days for her
to get in touch with them. Then, when
there was no word from her, they
notified the police.

Smith and the other officers working
on the case were handicapped by the
fact that Sally had not told her foster-
parents her boy friend’s name. They
only knew that he was considerably
older than she, and that he worked
as a car painter in Oakland. ,

It was several weeks before Smith
located the man, Rex Brennan, He ad-
mitted that he had taken Sally out on
October 3rd, but said he had brought
her home at two-thirty the next morn-
ing and left her in front of the family
apartment. He denied that he had seen
her after that or that he had any idea
where she was.

Brennan had a good reputation, but
Smith was not satisfied with his story
that he had left on his vacation the
same morning he escorted the girl

POLICE DRAGNET

Psychiatrists judged Greig sane. He
was tried and found guilty of first de-
gree murder and sentenced to die in the
gas chamber. After several stays, he
was executed in San Quentin’s little
green room on August 23rd, 1940.

Grandstander to the end, when he
heard the fatal pellet plop into the
acid bucket under his chair, the sexual-
ly deranged youth leaned his head
down to his strapped hands and manag-
ed to pull the bandage from his eyes.
Straightening up, he winked and smiled
at the witnesses, took one deep gulp
of the cyanide gas and slumped over
dead.

Editor's Note: The names Pete West-
erly, James Young and Rolf Bjork are
fictitious.

home. He claimed to have gone to

. Utah, where he spent the next two

weeks in Ogden and Salt Lake City.

An investigation soon disclosed that
Brennan actually had gone to Ogden,
however, and he was tentatively cleared
of suspicion.

Tw months passed, and then the

missing girl’s foster-mother began
to receive long-distance telephone calls
from a woman who asked for Sally
and then hung up without giving her
name, Each of the calls was made from
Salt Lake City, in Utah,

Then, shortly before Christmas,
Brennan again went to Salt Lake City
on vacation. When he returned, early
in January, Smith brought him in for
questioning.

Brennan broke down and admitted
that he had been seeing Sally in Salt
Lake City, When he went there the
first time, he said, she “followed” him
and by some coincidence obtained a
room in the same hotel where he was
staying.

She made him promise not to tell
anyone where she was, he declared, and
that was why he had been concealing
the truth, When he last saw her, he said,
in December, she was working in a
nursing home near Ogden.

Smith asked the Ogden and Salt Lake
City police to try to find some trace
of the girl, but thus far they had no
success.

After further. communication be-
tween the Albany police and the Sacra-
mento officers, arrangements were made
for Inspector Smith to bring Brennan
to Sacramento to view the remains of
the murder victim.

A court order was obtained, and the
headless, legless body was exhumed.

The result was inconclusive. Bren-
nan gazed at the body with seeming
earnestness before shaking his head in
the negative.

“It may be Sally,” he said. “I just
can’t say whether it is or not.”

Aided by, Sergeant Robert Turley,
Smith searched the missing girl’s home

, for latent prints on objects, she was

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55

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eaeetSesS

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fer

Mee Seis

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fined iit tia
fn aerate ae

tea

known to have handled. They finally
found her prints on a bottle, three din-
ner plates and two phonograph records.

It was finally concluded, after com-
paring the prints of both girls, that the
victim was not Sally Ellis.

In the meantime, the New York
jewelry firm had replied to McVeigh’s
inquiry, and another lead ended in dis-
appointment. The bracelet was not one
of those handled by this company, and
there. appeared to be little likelihood
that it had been manufactured in the
East.

Knoll and McVeigh again found
themselves facing a blank wall. It was
bitter to realize that the prospects of
their solving the case were beginning
to look no better than in the first torso
murder
_ Not only was the murdered girl’s
identity still shrouded in mystery, but
the slayer’s motive was equally obscure.
Even the approximate date of the mur-
der could only be guessed at.

Sheriff Cox made one more appeal
to the public for information, and this
was published in the newspapers on
January 16th, Neither he nor his depu-
ties regarded this effort as anything
more than a forlorn hope, but it
resulted in an anonymous tip that was
received the following day.

A woman who refused to give her
name telephoned to report that a friend
of hers had information about a neigh-
bor whose actions were cause for sus-
picion.

“Around the middle of last month,”
she said hurriedly, “this man, who lives
in Brighton, about a mile from the
American River, brought a young wom-
an to his cabin, Nobody saw the girl
leave there, but a couple of days later
my friend saw him burn a mattress
in his back yard.”

Her friend’s name was Mrs. Lucille
Watson, she said, and furnished her
address, Still refusing to reveal her own
identity, she hung up while the deputy
who received the call was trying to
question her. .

Knoll and McVeigh immediately
drove to Brighton, a suburban com-
munity near the eastern outskirts of
Sacramento, where they readily located
Mrs. Watson’s home. She was a pleas-
ant-faced, motherly type of woman,
who operated a foster home for chil-
dren while caring for her invalid hus-
band, who was confined to bed,

A little upset to find herself involved
in a murder investigation, she admitted
that she had told several of her friends
about her neighbor, Vic Corrales, and
the mattress he had burned.

“But I don’t really suspect him of
those terrible murders,” she said, “and
I wish I knew which one of my friends
telephoned you.”

It developed, however, that her sus-

_picions of her neighbor were somewhat
stronger than she cared to admit. But
she feared possible reprisals, Should he
be tried but not convicted, then not
only her own safety but that of her
husband and the children might be en-
dangered.

56

Knoll quickly reassured her on this
score, promising that her identity would
be protected as long as there was any
risk involved. She felt better then, and
talked freely.

HE man’s name was Victoriano
Corrales. He lived in a shack near

by, having previously occupied a similar
cabin near a vegetable garden, where
he was then employed. He now worked
as a laborer for a pipe company, He
was a quiet, mild-mannered little man
who spoke with a foreign accent and
said he was born in Mexico. He had
lived in Brighton a year or more, off
and on, sometimes staying in Sacra-
mento, People said he was steady; hard-
working, and always paid his debts.
“I don’t know him very well,” Mrs.
Watson explained, “but he always im-

' pressed me as a nice man.”

Then she went on to tell why he
might not be what he appeared to be.
A month earlier he had brought a girl
to his cabin in a taxicab, early in the
evening. The children heard them argu-
ing and saw him push her inside. They
all were afraid to go near the shack
except eleven-year-old Hank Smith,
who tiptoed over and listened to a
violent argument in Spanish.

Rejoining his playmates, he excitedly
told them what he had heard, Then he
went back and listened again. To his
surprise, there was not a sound to be
heard. He finally left, wondering at the
abrupt cessation of the heated quarrel.

The children told Mrs. Watson about
the quarrel, and the next day they
commented on the fact that Corrales
had gone to work alone and the girl
had not set foot outside the cabin.
But Mrs. Watson concluded that she
had left during the night.

Two days later, she saw some smoke
and observed Corrales burning what
appeared to be a good innerspring
mattress in his yard. Then he went to
town and came back home with a
cheap cotton mattress.

When the newspapers began to carry

headlines about the second torso mur-

der, Mrs, Watson was too busy to
pay much attention to the story. She
simply never thought of Corrales in that
connection, although she still wondered
sometimes why he had burned that
mattress.

One day, however, a group of her

friends gave her a detailed, spine-chill-
ing account of both murders. They said
the sheriff was asking the public’ to
report any circumstances that might
furnish a lead, and they pointed out
that the slayer might be the last person
anyone would suspect.
_ That started a train of thought going
in her mind, and she began to wonder
about Corrales’ wife, whom she had
seen only a few times. She had been a
nice-looking Mexican girl, evidently in
her twenties, though Corrales was
around 50. They had moved into the
cabin after having lived for a time in a
shack down by the river. A few days
later they had both disappeared.

When Corrales returned, a couple of

weeks later, Mrs. Watson asked him
what had become of ‘his wife. He said
they had gone to Arizona’ together and
that she had left him there. He wasn’t
much of a talker, so Mrs. Watson told
him she was sorry to hear it, and that
was all that was ever said about the —
matter.

But with her suspicions aroused, Mrs.
Watson asked her friends for more
information about the first torso mur-
der. They said the body had been dis-
covered in Steamboat Slough on June
21st. Mrs. Watson couldn’t remember
exactly when Corrales and his wife had
disappeared, but she thought it was
around the first of June. At any rate,
she was sure it was some time before
the torso was found.

An hour later, at the plant where he
worked, the police took Corrales into
custody.

Questioned by Sheriff Cox and Chief
Deputy District Attorney Alfred H.
Mundt, Corrales calmly denied that he
had ever had a woman living with him
or that he had brought a girl to his
cabin. He readily admitted having burn-
ed the mattress, but said it had been
soiled by the children of some friends
who had occupied the cabin while he
was away. He had decided to get rid
of it and buy a new one, he asserted.

Knowing that the suspect was lying
when he denied any connection with
either of the women Mrs. Watson had
seen, Cox and Mundt became con-
vinced that they had the torso mur-
derer in custody at last. They ham-
mered at him with questions, but with-
out much success, Speaking in clear but
abbreviated English, he steadfastly
maintained his innocence.

Knoll and McVeigh, meanwhile, had
gone to his cabin and were searching
it. They found a large keen-edged
butcher knife on the table and a double-
bit ax leaning against the electric re-
frigerator, but there was no discernible
trace of blood on either.

After failing to discover any wom-
en’s clothing or other clues, they went
outside and found the springs from
the mattress Corrales had burned.

But that was all. They finally left,
taking the ax and knife with them.

By a late hour that night, Corrales
had contradicted himself many times
and was betraying his inner agitation.
He now admitted that he had had a
woman living with him, but said he had
taken her on a trip on June Ist and
that she had walked out on him in
Arizona, He said her name was Alberta
Gomez and that she was about 28.

But he continued to deny that he
had brought another, younger girl, to
his shack on December 12th, or at any
other time, They were mistaken about
that, he insisted.

They finally let him get some sleep.

wide om 2 at a B: |

For Knoll and McVeigh, there was es

little sleep that night, but when the
questioning was resumed the next
morning they were primed and ready.
They had interviewed Corrales’ em-

. ployer and fellow workmen, and had
traced him to a hotel in Sacramento’ *»

POLICE DRAGNET


where he had spent a week with a
young woman. They had located a taxi-
cab driver who had taken him and
the girl to his cabin in Brighton, and
another cab driver who had picked
up the suspect at a beer parlor in Sac-
ramento the next evening and who re-
membered that the legs of his trousers
were covered with dried mud up to the
knees. They had also questioned Mrs.
Watson again and talked with little
Hank Smith and his playmates.

Nc. began the interrogation by
asking the suspect how he had
spent the night.

“Oh, so-so,” he replied, with a shrug.

“Are you ready to tell us what you
did with that girl you took to your
cabin on the night of December 14th?”
Knoll demanded. “We know the date
now, because the taxicab company has
a record of the trip.”

“TI have no girl,” Corrales answered.

“Now, look here, Corrales,” Knoll
said sharply. “I am going to bring that
cab driver in here, and he will tell you
to your face that he took you and a girl
to your shack on that night.”

Corrales’ glance fell beneath Knoll’s
penetrating gaze. He studied his hands
for a moment, then spoke. “I kill her,”
he said.

With the aid of an interpreter sent
by the local Mexican consul, a state-
ment was obtained from the slayer.

The girls name was Maria Pulido,
he revealed, and she was about 20. He
had met her in Mexico, where he had
gone in November. She was very pretty,
and he begged her to accompany him
back to the United States. He knew she
was poor and friendless, and he painted
a glowing picture of the life of luxury
that would be hers in the country north
of the border.

She agreed to go with him, and he
smuggled her into California at night.
They climbed over the fence at an un-
guarded section of the border. He
brought her to Sacramento, and for a
few days they lived together in a hotel
room, Then he took her in the taxicab
to his cabin.

When the girl saw the wretched
shack he called his home, she was
furious.

“You lied to me!” she cried. “I will
not live here. Why this hovel is worse
than anything I ever lived in in Mexico.
It is as old and ugly as you are!”

Angered by the taunt, he dragged her
inside and prevented her from leaving.
Their bitter quarrel reached a climax
when she asserted that she was through
with him and was going to a younger
man.

Corrales said he grabbed up a ham-

_ mer and struck her twice on the head.

A short time later, without trying
to determine whether or not she was
dead, he began cutting up the body,
using the knife and the ax Knoll and
McVeigh had found, He did it, he said,
to make it easier for him to transport
the remains, which he carried to the
river in a burlap sack, He made two
trips, disposing of the torso first and

POLICE DRAGNET

then the head and legs.

Having made this confession, Cor-
rales remained cooperative. He led the
officers to the place .where he had
thrown the body into the water, and
they immediately began dragging the
river in that area.

A few hours later, the head of the
murdered girl was recovered, not far
from where he said he had thrown it
into the stream.

Seeking additional evidence in sup-
port of the slayer’s confession, Knoll
had the ax and knife examined, but
tests revealed no trace of blood on
either, Then part of the cabin floor was
taken up, and traces of human blood
were found between the cracks.

EANWHILE, Corrales continued

to deny any knowledge of the
previous torso murder, and the officers
began to wonder whether it actually
was a separate case.

Then Knoll and Deputy Munizich
made another search of the cabin, and
the latter discovered two short pieces
of electric cord attached to a light
socket, The same type of wire had
been used to truss up the blanket-
wrapped torso discovered in Steam-
boat Slough, and a comparison soon
proved that it had been cut from the
length of wire found in the cabin.

When Deputy District Attorney
Mundt showed the suspect the wire and
pointed out that the ends of both pieces
matched, he scratched his head and
smiled ruefully.

“T kill Alberta, too,” he admitted.

Alberta Gomez had been 28 and a
native .of Irapuato, Mexico, where Cor-
rales was born. He met her there dur-
ing a trip in search of an attractive
mate. She could not resist the lure of
the kind of life he said awaited her in
the fabulous United States, and he
smuggled her to his first shack in
Brighton.

Bitterly disillusioned, she threatened
to leave him, but she had no money
and he persuaded her to remain, They
moved into the cabin near Mrs. Wat-

‘ son’s home, and there she began going

out and making friends, and he sus-
pected that she was looking for a
younger man who would rescue her
from her plight, as she had hinted
she would do.

A few days later, around June 12th,
he came home and found, that she had
not prepared his supper. He demanded
an explanation, and she replied that she
had spent the day in town and just got
back, During the argument that fol-
lowed, she declared that she was under
no obligation to have his meals ready
for him, and she began getting her
things together, prepared to walk out
on him.

“I hit her with the hammer and
break the handle,” he said. “Then I
cut her up and carry the pieces to
the river.”

Five months later, he returned to
Irapuato and induced -Maria Pulido to
live with him, as he had previously re-
lated. He used the same hammer to

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57

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murder her, and it was because the
handle was cracked from bludgeoning
his first victim that he wasn’t sure the
two blows killed her.

An examination of Miss Pulido’s
head had already led the autopsy sur-
geon to express the opinion that she
had not died from the hammer blows
but from the decapitation.

The. Mexican authorities were con-
tacted, and they found witnesses who
had seen both of the victims with the
killer at the times he had mentioned.
They forwarded a snapshot of Miss
Pulido.

During the questioning, Corrales re-
vealed that he had a wife and six chil-
dren, whose whereabouts he didn’t
know, He said his wife had left him
suddenly, several years previously,
while they were living in another
county. :

It was feared that he had murdered
this woman, too, but several days later
the search for her turned up his eldest
daughter north of Sacramento, where
the 14-year-old child was working to
help support her family,

The mother and her other five chil-
dren were then located 100 miles south
of there, near Fresno.

She told authorities she: was not sur-

prised to learn that her husband had
murdered two women, and revealed
that she had fled from him in fear
for her life.

At first they had been happy together,
she said, but he began to change after
their first child was born. He became
more and more brutal, beating her and

mistreating the children. He often

threatened to kill her, and once chased
her with a knife, That time, she de-
clared, only luck and the intervention
of the children saved her; he tripped
and fell down, and the children held
him while she got away.

The authorities traced Corrales’ back-
ground and concluded that he had not
murdered anyone else. He was mean-
while charged with the murders of Al-
berta Gomez and Maria Pulido, and
entered pleas of not guilty and not
guilty by reason of insanity.

An examination by three eminent
psychiatrists showed the slayer to be
sane, and his insanity plea was then
withdrawn.

While the trial was pending, Sally
Ellis returned to her home in Albany.
Surprised to léarn of the search ‘that
had been made for her, she said she
had traveled through several states,
working in nightclubs.

STRAWBERRY BLONDE
(Continued from page 8)

pond and seemed in a great hurry,” she
said. “As he passed us, he turned his
head away.”

She described him as being some-
where in his 20s, tall, slender, and wear-
ing a gray sports jacket.

Chief Curran and Captain Spahr

7 thought there was a good chance that

this man was the murderer. Their opin-
ion seemed confirmed when the search-
ers discovered a car containing a young
man and a girl parked in a leafy,
well-hidden spot about 500 feet from
the murder scene.

Badly frightened by the officers’ in-
trusion, they said they had been there
since midafternoon and had lost track
of the time. They told the police that at
about 4 p.m. they had seen a young
man and a girl walking along the path
toward the pond.

“What was the girl wearing?” Cap-
tain Spahr asked,

“A white sleeveless blouse and green
shorts,” the girl in the car said. “They
passed quite near us.”

“What did the man look like?”

“He.was a little older than she was.
He was tall and slender and wore thick-
lensed glasses. He was a nice-looking
man.”

“Did you hear them talking?”

“Well, I couldn’t hear what they were
saying. They were just talking and
laughing as though they were having
a good time.”

58

Corrales was brought to trial in ,
March. The defense offered no evi-
dence, but maintained that the defend-
ant had killed in the heat of passion,
without premeditation, and was there-
fore not guilty of first-degree murder.

But Deputy District Attorney John
Quincy Brown demanded the death
penalty, asserting that Corrales was
“another Bluebeard,” whose moral con-
cepts were those of a savage.

“He murdered those girls and then
cut up their bodies,” Brown said, “with
as little concern as you and I would
have in decapitating a chicken.”

The jury agreed with the prosecutor,
for on March 16th it found the defend-
ant guilty of murder in the first de-

gree without recommendation, on each .

of the counts.

OUR days later, Superior Judge
Raymond T. Coughlin sentenced the
torso murderer to die in the gas cham-
ber at San Quentin Prison,
Victoriano Corrales was legally exe-
cuted at San Quentin on February
24th, 1950, *

Editor’s Note: The names Lucille Wat-
son, Hank Smith, Tod Dover, Sally

Ellis and Rex Brennan are fictitious.

“Did you notice what direction they
came from?” Chief Curran asked.

“From a road over in that direction.”
The girl pointed through the trees. “I
heard a car door slam when they got out
to go for their walk.”

Convinced that the couple had seen
the murderer and his victim, Curran
and Spahr made their way to the road.
They were surprised to find a Lincoln
convertible of a recent model still
parked there. Two other police officers
had already discovered it and were
examining it with flashlights,

“We’ve found no trace of the owner,”
one of them said. “The car. must have
been abandonded here.”

The officers jotted down the license
number and Chief Curran radioed po-
lice headquarters. He learned that the

, Car was registered to a resident of the
adjoining town of Baldwin. Captain

Spahr and another officer drove at once
to the man’s address,

“Yes, I. own a Lincoln convertible,”
he told them, ‘and thank heavens
you’ve found it. I left it parked at the
railroad station when I caught the train
to New York this morning, but when I
got back half an hour ago it wasn’t
there, I took a taxi home thinking my
wife might know something about it,
but she didn’t and I was about to call
the police and report it stolen.”

The commuter had no difficulty in
convincing the officers that he was in
New York City at the time of the mur-
der and he was never under any suspi-
cion. The police left after assuring him
that his car would be returned to him
as soon as they’d examined it for prints.

Returning to the scene of the crime,
the officers learned that no further dis-
coveries had been made. Their first task
was still to learn the identity of the vic-
tim, and since she appeared to be of
school age they called at the home of
the local high school principal.

He went with them to his office at
daybreak and they searched the school
records for a girl of the victim’s descrip-
tion named Ann. They found a number
of Anns, but in some cases the descrip-
tion did not match and in others the
girl in question was found to be safely
at home.

The officers realized that if the vic-
tim was not a local girl, the job of
identifying her might prove much more
difficult, Chief Curran checked with
the missing persons officer again, but
the dead girl still had not been reported
missing,

PRE officers had barely returned to
headquarters when a phone call was
received by Chief Curran. The caller:
identified himself as William J, Nash
and said he owned a rooming house in
the downtown section of Baldwin.

“One of my roomers, a girl named
Ann Lund, didn’t come home last
night,” he reported. “Her roommate
told me this morning, and said she’d just
heard over the radio that the girl found
dead at Old Mill Pond was wearing a
small gold locket. Well, Ann always
wore a locket like that.”

Chief Curran and Captain Spahr sped
to the rooming house, a former funeral
home. Nash, 36 years old, said he con-
ducted a fire alarm-installation business

POLICE DRAGNET


ecuted members of the
family after bodies were
vered from mineshatft.

in the manhunt.

after this incident that
arlton hurried to Springfield
eadquarters to report her
‘s disappearance. The dis-
nother told detectives that
S a quiet girl, intent on her
an artist. She had recently
1 from a well-known school
in Jefferson City, and was
orward to pursuing a career
ce artist. Betty had applied
ob and was one of three
ing considered for the job.
3etty had not been heard of
ays police began a thorough
the area where her car had
nd abandoned in the hope
g up some clue concerning
zht have happened to the
aired beauty. On the third
ndred-man posse scoured
tryside dipping deep into
gorges on the chance that
ar-old girl had been kid-
murdered, and her body

added procedure, lawmen
ructions for the preparation
irs containing the missing
otograph and description.
re distributed to every law
ent agency in Missouri and
inding states.
vas a possibility, the detec-
culated, that Bill Cook was
»age and could be linked to
disappearance.
ek after the pretty artist had
rted missing her cream-col-
| was found in a ditch just
pringfield. When the news
id was publicized during
zht’s newscasts a response
lic appeal for help came
A young man who was
iome from work reported
ad seen a Dodge pickup
-e Betty’s car off the side
id. He had driven by slow-
is able to give the police a
cription of the man who
e girl from her car and had
with her.
’s naked and ravished body
found fifteen miles from
City. A coroner said that
semen was discovered
.cross her belly and breasts

that more than one rapist probably
was involved.

It didn’t add up to William Cook.
He always operated alone. Besides, a
doctor’s report from a reformatory
where Cook had spent some time,
reported that he “was not capable of
ejaculation, nor is he capable of sus-
taining an erection sufficient for pen-
etration.”

The first newspaper reports in-
volving the Mosser case dwelt on the
discovery of the family automobile,
found abandoned on the outskirts of
Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The car was immediately towed to
the Tulsa crime lab and processed
for clues. Detectives found a receipt
for a gun the killer had recently pur-
chased. Detectives worked to accrue
sufficient evidence to assure a con-
viction in case no bodies could be
recovered.

For the next few weeks officials
coordinated a massive team effort
which encompassed four states in
quest of the missing Mosser family.
Eventually, bloodhounds stopped at
the mineshaft and looked down.
Lawmen who lowered themselves in-
to the pit, found the mangled bod-
ies.

By the time the coroner’s report
had been received by the district at-

torney’s office it was already known
that the murders had taken place at
the point where the bodies were dis-
covered. A team of experts from the
Tulsa Police Laboratory had combed
the area throughout and reported that
they had found no traces of anything
or anyone other than the bodies.

Police spread several pictures out
on the table for the service station
attendant to look at. Without hesita-
tion he pointed to one of them and
asserted, “That’s him! That’s the
man who fired at me!”

Back at police headquarters police
pulled the file and it was all there.

Born in Joplin, Missouri, in 1929,
William Cook’s life of crime began
as he was growing up as a teenager
around Joplin, one of eight children
fathered by an alcoholic miner.
When his mother died, his father
moved his brood into an abandoned
mineshaft, rather than pay rent and
utilities in town. Here they lived like
animals, eating and sleeping togeth-
er - the father sexually abusing each
of his daughters, while the others
looked on helplessly.

Social workers eventually placed
the children in foster homes. Appar-
ently, Bill Cook’s drooping eyelid
unnerved his prospective foster par-
ents, and he found placement only

when the state agreed to pay his
room and board. Unfortunately,
Cook’s foster parents were only in-
terested in the money and not the
boy’s welfare. He ran the streets, and
as he reached adolescence, he got in-
to trouble and ended up in court.

His first arrest was for petty theft.
In 1947 he robbed a St. Louis cab-
driver of $11, was arrested and sen-
tenced to five years. At a Missouri
reform school he got into so much
trouble that the warden transferred
him to the Missouri State Peniten-
tiary. An inmate passed a remark
about his drooping eye, Cook went
berserk and would have beaten the
man to death with a ballbat if the
guards hadn’t come to the rescue.
He was tossed in “the hole” for thir-
ty days. When he came out he was
meaner than ever.

He sported a tattooed letter be-
tween the knuckle and first joint of
each finger of each hand that, when
pressed together, spelled out H-A-
R-D-L-U-C-K.

William Cook was 22-years-old in
1950 when he was paroled with a
warning to “stay out of trouble.” He
hitched rides all through the South-
west, getting odd jobs, and staying
around town only long enough to be
hated by everyone he met. In Blythe,

_ San Quentin, where Cook went
defiantly to the gas chamber.

4n

19

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but when it was noticed that they
had no drooping right eye, they were
let go. Police traced William Cook
to a garage apartment in Freeman’s
Grove Addition, a suburb of Joplin,
but he had apparently got clear of
the city before the police cordon had
fallen into place. The question now
was, where was he? And could po-
lice capture him before he committed
another grotesque crime?

Meanwhile, Cook kidnapped an-
other motorist, shot him, dumped
him out on the highway, and made
off with his car.

The posse hunting for William
Cook swelled to one thousand law
enforcement deputies and FBI
agents.

Newspapers of the 1950s ate it up.
They compared Cook with Pretty
Boy Floyd and John Dillinger. All
this did was to alarm citizens, who
locked themselves in their homes,
afraid to come out after sundown.
Others bought large dogs, guns, and
various means of protection.

22

Police got a tip that a friend was
harboring Cook in Dallas. The house
was put under surveillance and heav-
ily armed Texas Rangers and Dallas
police moved in one night and
nabbed a suspicious looking fellow
who resembled Cook. It wasn’t him.
Police licked their wounds.

This didn’t sway the cops one bit.
Acting on another anonymous tip
they sealed off Dallas County by
roadblocks. Rangers and city police
armed with riot guns began raiding
every known criminal haunt. Bill
Cook was far away, headed into
Mexico, without any money, food,
blankets, or extra ammunition.

Just below the border Cook spot-
ted a lone man in a new Dodge pick-
up. He followed the pickup into a
grocery store parking lot. Cook com-
mandeered the truck at gunpoint and
sped out of town. The theft had been
seen, though, and reported to the
nearest law office. The dispatcher
got. on the phone to the Santa
Rosaria police, 400 miles below the

border, describing the vehicle that
was headed in their direction.

A Mexican police officer spotted
Cook roaring along a remote country
road. He tried to flag the car down,
then jumped for his life as Cook
opened up with his pistol, shooting
around the windshield of his speed-
ing vehicle. The officer managed to
get off a few shots of his own. A
deadly volley ripped into the pick-
up as it roared southward.

Mexican police were waiting for
him at the end of the roadway. They
zeroed in an the pickup as it roared
towards them at speeds exceeding
90 mph. Suddenly Cook spotted
them. He threw the V-8 into second
gear, twisted the wheel and hit the
accelerator. The rear end skidded to
a perfect 180-degree arc, then went
roaring across a field, pistols, shot-
guns and rifles spitting hell at him.

Up ahead, more ambushers wait-
ed. Cook, driving with one hand and
shooting with the other, managed to
get away, but not before his pickup
was peppered with a dozen shotgun
slugs.

Cook was running low on gas
when he spotted two Laotians fishing
by the roadside. He kidnapped them
at gunpoint and made them drive to-
ward Cabo San Lucas.

The Mexican authorities had or-
ders to “shoot-to-kill,” and every
available prowl car was combing the
countryside for the killer.

When Cook heard on the car radio
that roadblocks were being set up to
prevent his travelling into Cabo San
Lucas, he ordered his frightened cap-
tives to swing around and head for
Santa Rosaria.

They drove all night, ending up in
Santa Rosaria on January 15, 1951.
They stopped for gas and a quick
bite, then hit the highway again.

It was around noon, and Santa
Rosaria Police Chief Francisco
Morales pulled into a truck stop for
lunch. As he was entering the road-
side cafe, he noticed a vehicle
pulling into the parking lot with two
Laotians and an American aboard.
His attention was drawn to the man
with the drooping eyelid. Immedi-
ately he recogonized him as the
wanted killer, William Cook. Fran-
cisco nonchantly walked up to Cook,
pulled the killer’s own pistol from
his belt, and stuck it in his face.
Cook gave up without a single shot

being fired.

The Mexican aut!
Cook over the the FI
murderer was extre4
to California to
murder of Rober

The trial was as
bizarre drama. Many
of the victims wer:
house. The service s
who had escaped the
plus the two men Co
hostages in Mexico,
for the state and sha
nation by the defens«
to discredit any of th
Lodged in the old co
diately adjacent the
between court sessic
be heard singing, “Y
the Good Times Till

In his closing state:
torney characterized
dence as a “chain
sand.” He used consi.
in describing the acti\
and city police offic:

The day after the
sented to the jury th
ter deliberating a lit!
hours. They found |
murder in the first «
ommended that he be
San Quentin’s gas c
Cook heard the verd
and shouted, “I hate \
guts — everybody!”

As the days dwindk
date with destin’ ~~
fused to show ri
had done. He desv.._-
a newspaper man hc
killed the Mosser fan
as they cowered and |
lives. He said he to
killing one of the chilc
wouldn’t stop crying

He described hoy
begged for his life. H
telling how he shot
twice, kicked her lim
mineshaft and watc
from pillar to post i
said he was astonished
out police had found
thought they were in
they would never be

Cook’s last meal \
but breakfast, which
7 a.m. the day of the

The gas chamber, a
foot-wide steel room
an oval hatch, was

@ TOTAL
|

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California, he worked as a dish-
washer. By now he was carrying a
.32-caliber, snub-nosed revolver
which he kept tucked in the waist-
band of his trousers.

In Blythe, Deputy Sheriff Warren
Smith noticed a Plymouth nosed in-
to a clump of bushes at the side of a
remote dirt road. The hood was up,
and the driver was tinkering with
some wires.

Deputy Smith pulled in behind the
stranded car, got out, and approached
the driver.

“Need some help, sir?” the deputy
asked politely.

The drooping eye of the killer
gleamed maliciously, and clawing
for his gun, he kidnapped the deputy
at gunpoint and forced him to drive
around the countryside while he
bragged about killing the Mosser
family. After a 40-mile ride he or-
dered the officer to pull over and
“get out.” He tied the officer to a
tree and blindfolded him.

“This way you won’t have to see
the bullet that’s going to splatter
your brains,” Cook said. The mass

murderer was just having his little
joke. The deputy heaved a giant sigh
as he heard his patrol car fade away
in the distance.

When Officer Smith was found by
a passing motorist, he was rushed to
a hospital in a state of shock. Later,
he told his commander that his as-
sailant had the words “Hard Luck”
tattooed across the fingers of his left
hand. Ironically, that foretold the fate
of the policeman who stopped to
lend a stranded man a hand and
wound up strapped to a tree.

A few miles down the road Cook
turned on the patrol car’s flashers
and pulled Robert Dewey, a bulbous
traveling salesman from Banning,
over to the side of the road.

“What’s wrong ,officer?” the star-
tled motorist said as Cook ap-
proached his car. “I wasn’t speed-
ing, was I?”

Cook drew his pistol and poked it
in Dewey’s face.

“We’re swapping cars,” he said,
“get out!”

One wonders what was going
through Dewey’s mind when he

jumped Cook and tried to disarm
him. In any case, his attempt at
bravissimo failed. The silence of the
desert was broken by the blast of
gunfire. Dewey died quick, stripped
of his wallet and money. Cook com-
mandeered his black Dodge and be-
came swallowed up in the lifeless
desert.

That brought us to December 30,
1950, when William Cook found
himself stranded just outside of Lub-
bock. He watched the headlights
come nearer. When the car pulled in
an all-night service station for gas,
Cook ambled over and leaned into
the driver’s side window.

“Which way you headed?” he
asked coolly.

“Tulsa,” the driver said, and that
was the undoing of the Mosser fam-
ily.

Within a very short time after the
discovery of the bodies in the mine-
shaft, every exit from Joplin was
sealed off and teams of detectives
were combing it. Every male en-
countered between the ages of 20
and 30 was stopped and questioned,

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21

scribing the vehicle that
| in their direction.
an police officer spotted
ig along a remote country
‘ied to flag the car down,
ed for his life as Cook
with his pistol, shooting
windshield of his speed-
:. The officer managed to
‘ew shots of his own. A
ley ripped into the pick-
ared southward.
police were waiting for
end of the roadway. They
an the pickup as it roared
iem at speeds exceeding
Suddenly Cook spotted
hrew the V-8 into second
ted the wheel and hit the
r. The rear end skidded to
|80-degree arc, then went
ross a field, pistols, shot-
“flee spitting hell at him.
1ore ambushers wait-
ng with one hand and
vith the other, managed to
but not before his pickup
‘red with a dozen shotgun

as running low on gas
potted two Laotians fishing
dside. He kidnapped them
it and made them drive to-
o San Lucas.

xican authorities had or-
shoot-to-kill,” and every
orowl car was combing the
je for the killer.

ook heard on the car radio
locks were being set up to
is travelling into Cabo San
ordered his frightened cap-
wing around and head for
saria.

ove all night, ending up in
saria on January 15, 1951.
pped for gas and a quick
hit the highway again.
around noon, and Santa
Police Chief Francisco
sulled into a truck stop for
; he was entering the road-
e, he noticed a vehicle
ito the parking lot with two
and an American aboard.
tion was drawn to the man
drooping eyelid. Immedi-

‘ogonized him as the
t, William Cook. Fran-

icnantly walked up to Cook,
ie killer’s own pistol from
and stuck it in his face.

ve up without a single shot

being fired.

The Mexican authorities turned
Cook over the the FBI and the mass
murderer was extradited in shackles
to California to stand trial for the
murder of Robert Dewey, of Blythe.

The trial was a sensational and
bizarre drama. Many of the relatives
of the victims were in the court-
house. The service station attendant
who had escaped the wrath of Cook,
plus the two men Cook had taken as
hostages in Mexico, were witnesses
for the state and sharp cross-exami-
nation by the defense attorney failed
to discredit any of their conclusions.
Lodged in the old county jail imme-
diately adjacent the courthouse, in
between court sessions Cook could
be heard singing, “You Never Miss
the Good Times Till They’re Gone.”

In his closing statement Cook’s at-
torney characterized the state’s evi-
dence as a “chain of water and
sand.” He used considerable sarcasm
in describing the activities of the FBI
and city police officers.

The day after the case was pre-
sented to the jury they returned af-
ter deliberating a little less than 20
hours. They found Cook guilty of
murder in the first degree and rec-
ommended that he be given death in
San Quentin’s gas chamber. When
Cook heard the verdict he stood up
and shouted, “I hate you; I hate your
guts — everybody!”

As the days dwindled away and his
date with destiny neared, Cook re-
fused to show remorse for what he
had done. He described for guards and
a newspaper man how he shot and
killed the Mosser family one by one
as they cowered and begged for their
lives. He said he took pleasure in
killing one of the children because she
wouldn’t stop crying the entire trip.

He described how Mr. Mosser
begged for his life. He gloated while
telling how he shot Mrs. Mosser
twice, kicked her limp body into the
mineshaft and watched it bounce
from pillar to post into the pit. He
said he was astonished when he found
out police had found the bodies. “I
thought they were in a place where
they would never be discovered.”

Cook’s last meal was not dinner,
but breakfast, which was served at
7 a.m. the day of the execution.

The gas chamber, an octagonal, 8-
foot-wide steel room entered through
an oval hatch, was installed in a

wing of San Quentin’s North Block,
which contains death row, in 1937.
The two chair death chamber was
bought from a Denver firm for
$5,000.

Green venetian blinds in the ante-
room cover two of the windows
screening the executioner from the
view of both the condemned man
and the spectators standing in the
gallery outside.

As the traditional moment of exe-

if he had any last words, he said,
“Hell, no!”

A few minutes later a physician
listened to Cook’s heartbeat through
a rubber tube attached to a stetho-
scope on his chest. He nodded to the
warden that the prisoner was dead.

Without question, one of the most
fiendish killers in the history of the
country had been put to death. *

cution, 10 a.m. neared, on Decem-
ber 12, 1952, William Cook calmly
walked into the gas chamber and sat
down in the left-hand chair. He was
strapped at the ankles, legs, wrists,
chest and stomach. He was seated in
a direction facing away from the
spectators. They could see only his

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23

90d as he |
»wed the |
im to the |

BIll Cook, fighting against being photographed shortly after his capture.

_ There were five of them — Carl Mosser, 33; his wife Thelma,
- 29; Ronald Dean, 7; Gary Carl, 5; and Pamela Sue, 3. From their

farm home near Atwood, Illinois, the family left on Friday,
December 29, 1950, to visit Chris Mosser, a twin brother of Carl,
who was in the Army military police at Albuquerque, New
Mexico. They never arrived at their destination...

Early on January 5, 1951, two
local motorists traveling along a
lonely country. road in. Osage
County, Oklahoma, slowed down as
they approached a waving figure
beside a blue, two-door 1949 sedan.
They could see that the back wheels
were buried to the axle in mud where
it had slid into the ditch.

“Fellas, I got problems,” asserted
the short, curly-haired man in his
early twenties. One eyelid drooped
almost shut and his features had a
hard, tough look. .

“Get in,” the driver told him, “we'll
take you into Tulsa and you can get
someone to pull you out.”

Ata Tulsa shopping center, several
miles south, the man got out and
asked a pharmacy clerk if he could
use the telephone. Shortly afterward,
he left in a cruising taxicab.

Later in the day, Osage County
Deputy Sheriff Warren Smith came
across the blue sedan, still sunk in the
muddy ditch. Stopping to check it
out, he was stunned when he looked
inside. Blood was __ spattered
everywhere. The interior was
punctured with bullet holes.

Opening the door, Smith found

-bloody clothing, bloody blankets, a

bloodstained pocket knife, and spent
cartridge shells scattered on the floor
and back seat. Then he found the
driver’s license — Carl Mosser.
Apparently the car belonged to the
missing family from Illinois. He
hurried over to his patrol car and
radioed for assistance, reporting his
gruesome discovery. |

When he was interviewed by one of
the media, Smith stated: “It’s murder
— there’s no question about it. We’re
almost certain we’ve got a whole
family dead somewhere. It’s just a
question of finding them.”

Much importance was placed on a
puzzling discrepancy between the
reading on the car’s speedometer and
that of a sticker placed on it when the
vehicle was serviced on Thursday,
the day before the family left home.
The car’s speedometer read 18,601
miles when found, while the sticker
read 15,500 miles — an
unaccountable difference of 3,101
miles.

Smith said: “If the car was actually
driven that many miles, the bodies
could be hidden hundreds of miles
from Tulsa.”

The nand of Bill Cook with its defeatist symbol of his general attitude —
“HARD LUCK”. :

Best True Fact Detective - March 1979 / 27

COOK, William E., white, asphyx CA (Imperial) December 12, 1952

2 All five members of the Mosser family
were killed and thrown into this
sa abandoned mine shaft in Joplin, Mo. #4
Some of them are still bound and
= gagged. Bill Cook held the two small
children on his lap while he shot them
to death.

Bill Cook killed at least nine people in cold blood as he
hitchhiked across the country. He never showed the

slightest emotion— not even when they led him to the
gas chamber...

THE TRAIL OF THE
‘HARD LUCK’
KILLER

by Wayne T. Walker

26 / Best True Fact Detective - March 1979

BEST TRUE FACT DETECTIVE,
March, 1979

Bill Cook, fighti

There wer.
29; Ronald L
farm home
December 29
who was in
Mexico. The

Early on Ja
local motorists
lonely countr:
County, Oklah«
they approach:
beside a blue, t
They could see
were buried tot
it had slid into

“Fellas, I got
the short, curl
early twenties.
almost shut an
hard, tough loc

“Get in,” the
take you into T
someone to pu!

Ata Tulsa sh
miles south, th
asked a pharm:
use the telephor
he left in a crui

The FBI entered the case when
they tried to establish a connection
with a report of a car stolen in Texas
and recovered in Oklahoma. Lee
Archer, an auto mechanic from
Tahoka, Texas, picked up a
hitchhiker near Lubbock. Shortly he
held Archer up. He took $85 from
him, then shut him up in the car
trunk. The hitchhiker proceeded to
drive into Oklahoma. Desperately,
Archer kept prying with a tire tool
until he managed to open the trunk
lid, then jumped from the moving
car. He described the hitchhiker as
being short, with curly black hair and
a droopy eye.

At Luther, Oklahoma, the Archer
car burned out a rod and the
hitchhiker abandoned it. Kermit
Mackey, a farmer in the area,
observed a blue car stop and pick up
the man. He noticed there was a man
and woman, along with several kids,
_ occupying the blue automobile. It
carried Illinois license plates.

A little luck broke for the law
enforcement officials when a
purchase slip was found in the
Archer car. It was for a revolver
bought at a gun shop in St. Louis and
had the name of the buyer on it —
William Edward Cook. The
description of the Missouri ex-con of
that name tallied with the description
of the hitchhiker who held up
Archer.

A photo of Bill Cook was shown to
Archer, who emphatically identified
him as the hitchhiker. The two
motorists who picked up the man by
the Mosser car, as well as. the
pharmacy clerk, identified’) Cook
from photos. The FBI issued an APB
(all-points bulletin) on the ex-convict
on a charge of “unlawful flight to
avoid prosecution.”

William Edward Cook was 24
years old and had been sentenced
twice to the Missouri State
Penitentiary at Jefferson City, and
the biggest part of his early teens had
been spent in the Boys’ Reformatory

at Boonville, from which he had once

escaped. He had started a career of
crime when he was 12 years old. Only
5-foot-4 in height and born to abject
poverty and privation, he became
bitter at the world early. On the
fingers of one hand were tattooed the
words — HARD LUCK.

With no mother, the Cook
children had been housed by their

28/ Best True Fact Detective - March 1979

father in caves, mines and tar-paper
shanties. Welfare officials had finally
placed them in variqus foster homes,
but little Billy was by then totally
alienated and could not adapt. He
was cold — a loner — even as a child.

In Joplin, Missouri, the hometown
of Bill Cook, the local police
prepared for his return. They
emptied the gun rack at police
headquarters of sub-machine guns,
sawed-off shotguns. and tear gas
bombs.

But Bill Cook was a long way from
Joplin.

In. southern California, Homer
Waltrip, 27, Riverside County.
deputy sheriff, reparted Cook forced
him at the point of a .38-caliber
automatic to drive into the desert.
About 40 miles south of Blythe,
Waltrip was trussed up by Cook, his

‘own .38 automatic taken and left in

the middle of the highway, as the
fugitive drove off in his patrol car.

When Cook pulled the gun on
Waltrip, he had snarled: “I’ve
murdered seven people and I would
just as soon murder you.” He never
explained why he did not.

Waltrip worked loose from: his
bonds, and was walking along the

FS EDGR PSE TIT nS TNE TR tere oe TE

A meek Bill Cook
stands chained to a
U.S. Marshal. They
are waiting for a
boat to Alcatraz Pri-
son, where he was
to begin serving a
300-year sentence
for slaying the

Carl Mosser family.

highway when other law officers
picked him up.

Near Ogilby, further south on the
same highway, California highway
patrolmen found the deputy sheriff's
car. It was almost out of gas. Inside
the car was the body of Robert H.
Dewey, 32, a salesman from Seattle.
He had been shot in the head. Law
officials learned that Dewey had
been driving a large, blue Buick, and
a bulletin was issued. Roadblocks
were quickly set up in the sparsely
settled Imperial Valley and an
immense manhunt was concentrated
in the area.

Meanwhile, two men were found
in a snowdrift in Oklahoma. They
had been shot to death.

Even though their bodies had not
been found, Cook was charged in
Pawhuska, Oklahoma with the
murder of the five members of the
Mosser family. In Joplin, Chris
Mosser, frantic with apprehension,
arrived to assist in the search for his

loved ones.

Various friends of Bill Cook in his
hometown informed law officers that
he had relatives in California, but
they could not, or would not, identify
them or where they lived.

During this pe:
all over the cou!
pictures of Bill C:
Mosser family, re

in from Oklah
Arkansas. A
appear. It looke

had forced the fa
him over hundr
circular trip bet:
Accompanied by
was last seen in
The question was
end and where wu
All over the \
flowed in contint
himself — robbi:
shooting it out
These reports ca
to Texas, and
California. All «
Bill Cook wa
California, Mex)
Lying north of
of California. th:
— the Devil's \
aptly named, fo
flat, empty deser
The scorched

broken here anc
black lava and
between the ran}
Juarez and the r:

The hearse ce
* Cook leaves S:
. executed for '
salesman Rob
was first sh
Okla., where
visitors durin
disgusted fan
body to Jop!
secretly burie:
people in atte


2ek Bill Cook
Is chained toa
Marshal. They
waiting for a
‘0 Alcatraz Pri- ~
where he was
‘gin serving a
ear sentence
slaying the
Mosser family.

rer law officers

her south on the
ifornia highway
2 deputy sheriff's
ut of gas. Inside
ly of Robert H.
an from Seattle.
n the head. Law
iat Dewey had
blue Buick, and
ed. Roadblocks

in the sparsely
/alley and an
‘as concentrated

nen were found
klahoma. They
ath. f
bodies had not
was charged in

‘During this period, as more people
all over the country: read and saw
pictures of Bill Cook and the missing
Mosser family, reports began coming
in from Oklahoma, Texas and
Arkansas. A_ pattern began to
appear. It looked as though Cook
had forced the family to accompany
him over hundreds /of miles on a
circular trip before‘he killed them.
Accompanied by Cook, the family
was last seen in Horatio, Arkansas.
The question was: Where did the trip
end and where were the bodies?

All over the West,. other reports
flowed in continually about Cook by
himself — robbing, raping and even
shooting it out with policemen.
These reports came from Nebraska
to Texas, and from Missouri to

\

California. All of them were false. ’

Bill Cook was now in Baja
California, Mexico...

Lying north of the head of the Gulf
of California, the Arroyo del Diablo
— the Devil’s Wasteland — was an
aptly named, forbidding stretch of
flat, empty desert scrubland.

The scorched, seared country,
broken here and there by ridges of
black lava and cholla cactus, lies
between the ranges of the Sierra de
Juarez and the rock-strewn beach of

nt!

the Gulf, Cutting across the length of
this merciless land, a straight and
narrow asphalt ribbon ran from
Mexicali to the sleepy fishing village
of San Felipe, on the Gulf.

There was a halfway stop — a
hand-operated gasoline pump and a
shack — seventy miles north of San
Felipe, and the pump operator was
the only human inhabitant on the
entire highway. Except for fishing
enthusists, there was just no reason
to make the trip. Many swore that
even for avid fishermen, once was
more than enough.

Spending: a carefree night in .

Mexicali, two civil engineers from E]
Centro, California, decided to drive
downto San Felipe. If old man Augie
Gomez hadn’t rented his outboard
for the weekend, they could fish a
little in the Gulf and take home a
catch of totuava, pinto bass and
croakers.

It was about daybreak on Sunday,
January 7, 1951, when Forest
Damron and James Burke passed the
stalled blue Buick on the highway,
about 30 miles north of San Felipe.
Burke was driving and he slowed his
two-door Studebaker sedan, then
backed up.

“Hi, need some _ assistance?”

:

itt

Ed
&

& 2
a¥

»

Ba?

Damron asked the driver.

“I pulled a foolish stunt,”
answered the curly-haired man inthe
Buick. “I let my car run out of gas in
the middle of this damn country.”

“Well, jump in,” Damron told
him. “We'll take you to Felipe and
you can pick up a can of gas. That’ll
give you enough to drive back and fill
up.”

As they pulled away, Damron
turned to look at the stalled vehicle,
and for the first time he noticed its
Washington license plates.
Something in his mind clicked. They
had heard radio news about the
discovery .of the body: of a
Washington salesman and about an
escaped convict on the run —
somewhere in the Southwest.
Reports seemed to differ, with
reports placing Cook anywhere from
San Diego to Texas.

Damron turned around to get a
quick glance at their passenger. One
of his eyes drooped peculiarly — he
was short. Suddenly, he had a feeling
of panic. He knew where Cook was...
And, if there was any doubt, it was
quickly dispelled when he found
himself staring into the muzzle of a
gun.

“Turn. around and go back to the

a The hearse carrying the body of Bill
Cook leaves San Quentin after he was
executed for the ruthless slaying of
salesman Robert Dewey. The corpse ,
was first shipped to Comanche,
Okla., where it drew over 15,000
visitors during three days. Finally,
disgusted family members took the
body to Joplin, Mo., where it was iis
secretly buried at night, with only 15 jg
people in attendance.

ma with the .
nembers of the
Joplin, Chris
| apprehension,
ie search for his

Bill Cook in his
law officers that
California, but
uld not, identify
ived.


~ pete

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74

He was 17 when he and seven other
boys escaped from the training school
and went on a brief crime spree. Billy
Cook was picked up while trying to
steal a car. Sentenced then to the Inter-
mediate Reformatory of Algoa for five
years, he proved to be unmanageable
and was transferred to state prison. He
served the time with sullen submission
and was released on June 16, 1950.

Pictures of Cook were transmitted
from Jefferson City by wirephoto, and
the Tulsa witnesses identified him at
once. Cy Siwane was still traveling and
could not be reached. Sheriff Turner fil-
ed a charge of armed robbery against
Cook, and the FBI, on the assumption
he had now crossed a state line, charged
him with interstate flight to avoid prose-
cution. The suspect’s name and descrip-
tion was flashed throughout the South-
west, with urgent waming to motorists
to beware of hitchhikers.

The mass murder suspect was des-
cribed as being 5 feet 4 inches tall, 150
pounds, with blue eyes—the right one
markedly squinting—and curly light
brown hair on which he used a lot of
slick dressing. He walked with a slight
stoop, and had several tattoos, accord-
ing to prison records, including the let-
ters of the words HARD LUCK on the
backs of the fingers of his left hand. He
drank port wine but never smoked, and
he liked Mexican girls. He was an avid
comic book reader.

The search for the Mosser family’s
bodies was being pressed assiduously,
and centered for th~ most part along
Route 66 between Tulsa and Oklahoma
City. The next lead in the case, how-
ever, came from still farther to the
Southwest. Sheriff Hammett Vance call-
ed that night from Wichita Falls, Texas,
just over the border some 160 miles
south of Oklahoma City. A man who
operated a grocery store and filling sta-
tion near there had just come in with a
startling story.

At about 6 p.m. Saturday, the latter
said, an Illinois Chevrolet with two men
in the front seat and a woman and three
children in the back, had stopped for
gas. The two men came into the store,
where another customer was waiting, to
buy some lunch meat. Suddenly one of
them grabbed the other from behind
and pinioned his arms, shouting:

“Help me, for God’s sake help me!
He’s got a gun! He’s been with me and
my wife and kids all aftemoon and he’s
going to kill us!”

The grocer grabbed his own gun from
under the counter and covered the pair,
telling the man he could tum loose now.
But the taller, older man wouldn’t let go
and the storekeeper thought it might be
a trick. Fearing that they were planning
to hold him up, he ordered them out-
side. The short guy then suddenly
wrenched loose, pulled a pistol and or-
dered his erstwhile captor back into the
car, and they sped away without paying
for the gas.

The customer who had been waiting
jumped into his pickup and started to
follow, but quit abruptly when someone
in the fleeing car fired a shot back at
him. The storekeeper didn’t bother re-
porting the incident till he heard about

the hunt for Billy Cook.

Oklahoma police, accompanied by
Carl Mosser’s brother, sped to Wichita
Falls, and when the storekeeper saw the
Army lieutenant, he exclaimed, “‘That’s
the man who grabbed the other one!”

It was not, of course. The lieutenant
and his brother were identical twins.

The lieutenant identified a hat drop-
ped in the struggle between Carl Mosser
and his captor as his brother’s. The
storekeeper eons mk picked out a
mug shot of Billy Cook from a collec-
tion of others and said he was the man
who pulled the gun outside the store.

By Friday Scent the hunt for the
bodies of the Mosser family had focused
on the Texas-Oklahoma border area
along the Red River. Engaged in the
ever-widening search were a small army
of deputies, rangers, state troopers and
volunteers.

Meanwhile, reports. continued to
come in from here, there, and every-
where. Authorities developed informa-
tion that Cook had been working in
Blythe, California as a dishwasher for
several months, quitting December 23rd
after going on a spree to celebrate his
22nd birthday. Apparently he had gone
to El Paso, and spent considerable time
across the border in Mexico. From there
he was traced via other tips from infor-
mants, to Winthrop, Arkansas, Texar-
kana, Texas, and other places in the gen-
eral area,

Eventually, the investigators had
enough information to conclude that
Cook had forced his hostages to drive
him on a circuitous tour through Okla-
homa, Texas and Arkansas that account-
ed for at least 1,500 of the extra 2,500
miles on the Mosser’s Chevy’s speedom-
eter. They established also that the Mos-
sers had been alive Monday night in
Horatio, Arkansas.

The next morning, Billy Cook was
alone with the blood-drenched, bullet-
riddled car, stuck in a ditch near Tulsa.
Police could only speculate on why
Cook had killed the family, most likely,
they believed, because he couldn’t stop
Carl Mosser’s attempts to escape. He
Killed Mosser first, they reasoned, then
the entire family to make sure no one
could identify him.

The search for the bodies was being
pressed in half a dozen states as lawmen
investigated nearly 40 false alarms. But
when the big break came, it was from an
unexpected quarter, some 1,200 miles
from the center of the manhunt activi-

In Riverside County, California,
young Deputy Homer C. Waldrip, of
Blythe, was one of the officers who had
backtracked on Cook’s stay in that
small desert junction town on U.S. 60,
in the southeastern corner of the state.
He knew Billy personally because his
wife was a waitress in the cafe where the
squint-eyed Missourian had worked be-
fore going on his birthday spree. Wald-
rip had a hunch Billy might try to con-
tact some of his pals around Blythe, if
only to try to borrow some money, so
the deputy went out to look up the ex-
con’s closest buddy, a youth who lived
in a motel on the outskirts of town. The
door swung open when he knocked, and

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76

he stepped inside, only to have a gun
rammed into his ribs.

He found himself staring into the
face of Billy Cook. “Get into your car,
Homer, and start driving,” the gunman
snarled as he relieved the deputy of his
pistol. “Don’t try anything funny. I’ve
already killed seven people, and I’d just
as soon plug you, too.”

Waldrip could do nothing but obey.
At Cook’s direction, he drove out of
town, the automatic pressed into his
side. Billy Cook seemed to enjoy the sit-
uation. erties

“T guess I’m just about Public Enemy
No. 1,” he bragged. “I killed that family
back in Oklahoma, all five of them. I
couldn’t stand the kids bawling. I left
their bodies in a snowbank, and it’ll be a
long time before they find ’em.

“T killed two other people, too, a
couple of guys that crossed me up. You
could be next, Homer,” he said airily.

At a desolate spot near Midway Well
in the uninhabited Chocolate Moun-
tains, 40 miles south of Blythe, Cook
ordered the deputy to stop, get out of
the car and lie down on his face. Wald-
rip fully expected to be killed in the
next instant, but Billy had other plans.
He tied up his captive with a rope and
blanket from the police car, explaining
that he was giving the officer a break
because his wife had always been nice to
him at the restaurant.

“But you can tell your buddies I
won’t do the same for them,” he added.
“They'll never take me alive.”

Taking Waldrip’s wallet before leav-
ing the deputy helpless and hogtied in
the broiling sun, Billy took off toward
the Mexican border in the patrol car.
Two hours later, Waldrip was found and
released from his bonds by a pair of im-
migration inspectors who happened
along. They headed for Glamis with
him. They found the patrol car, aban-
doned, seven miles to the south.

“He must have stolen another car,
maybe kidnaped somebody else,” Wald-
rip said. “He couldn’t have gotten away
on foot. He probably figured my car
was too hot for him, and used my red
light to stop some other driver.”

The deputy was half-right. The trig-
ger-happy fugitive had indeed stopped
another car—but he had not kidnaped
the driver. In a roadside ditch nearby
they found ‘the body of a handsome
young man dressed in sports clothes. He
had been shot twice, in the back and
side. Papers in his wallet identified him
as Robert H. Dewey, 32, an oil com-
pany salesman from Seattle, Washing-
ton.

Within the hour, roadblocks had
been mounted throughout the region,
but no sign of the fugitive was spotted.
Billy Cook was now driving the car of
his latest victim, identified from papers
on Dewey’s body as a Buick sedan. It
was learned also that Dewey had been
on vacation and was enroute to visit his
parents, who lived near San Diego.

Dewey’s Buick, it was further learn-
ed, could not have been more ideal for
the fugitive’s purposes. The man’s par-
ents told police it was loaded with
camping supplies, including a cookstove,
food and blankets, as well as two hunt-

ing rifles and ammunition. The Sh ag
conceivably could keep Billy Cook at
large for days or weeks in the desert
wilderness. And now he had at least
four guns.

The fact that Cook was not found
was not due to any lack of a massive
effort to track him down, for within 24
hours, hundreds of heavily armed
searchers were trying to pick up his trail
in the Southern California desert area.
At least a dozen light planes took to the
air with spotters combing the terrain be-
low with binoculars. Specially trained
desert emergency crews driving four-
wheel drive vehicles fanned out and ex-
plored areas inaccessible to conventional
motor vehicles.

In Oklahoma, meanwhile, the search
for the murdered Mosser family swung
back to the western area of the state,
the only part of the state where snow
had fallen during the family’s captivity.
Police authorities had no way of know-
ing whether Cook’s talk of having killed
two other men was an idle boast, but
they feared the worst.

Meanwhile, too, both the Oklahoma
and California searchers were bedeviled
by an increasing number of false alarms
resulting from reports from well-inten-
tioned citizens who thought they had
information pertinent to the far-ranging
hunt for the fugitive and his victims.

The Buick belonging to Cook’s latest
victim, Robert Dewey, was found Sun-
day night, January 7th, by Police Chief
Guy Woodward of El Centro, California.
Woodward had been ranging south of
the border with his posse when he
found Dewey’s blue Buick abandoned
40 miles north of the sleepy little Mexi-
can fishing village of San Felipe in the
Colorado River delta of Baja California.
San Felipe lies on the Gulf Coast about
120 miles south of Mexicali. Cook seem-
ed to have a lot of trouble keeping his
stolen cars running. The license plates
were missing, and the guns and food
Cook seemed to have a lot of trouble
keeping his stolen cars running. The li-
cense plates were missing, and the guns
and food were gone. The tracks of
another car were found in the soft earth
nearby.

Villagers were canvassed, with the
help of Mexican police. The residents
had not seen anyone resembling Billy
Cook, but they said two other Amen-
cans in a maroon car had been seen in
the vicinity. The manhunters believed
Cook must have kidnaped or killed
someone else to make his getaway.

This fear was heightened when two
men from El Centro, Arlen Adams and
Seth Lovell, 33 and 32, respectively,
were reported missing by their families.
They had left Saturday aftemoon on an
overnight prospecting trip in the Choco-
late Mountains and were due back Sun-
day night.

But the two men often visited Mexi-
co, and now it was feared they might
have changed their plans and gone there
instead. Deputies soon learned positive-
ly that they had been seen at San Felipe
in their maroon sedan Saturday night.
The officers strongly suspected they
might have become Billy Cook’s latest
victims, and the men’s families posted

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78

$500 reward for information on their
whereabouts, dead or alive.

Then came some heads-up police ac-
tion which looked very promising from
the outset. In Tijuana, Police Chief
Francisco Kraus Morales, who was coop-
erating closely in the manhunt, received
a tip from the paymaster and an Ameri-
can engineer from a copper mine down
in Santa Rosalia, on the Gulf Coast
about 450 miles south of the border.
They told the chief that on their way
north the day before, they had passed a
southbound maroon-colored sedan on a
narrow mountain road. There were
three men in it, and the driver called out
a greeting in English.

“The chief immediately requisitioned
a plane and flew to Santa Rosalia at
dawn on Sunday morning with Officer
Antonio Canales. Accompanied by their
pilot, they were showing mug shots of
Billy Cook to local taxi drivers in the
town when suddenly a dusty maroon
sedan with California tags swung into
the main street. It stopped in front of
the town’s largest cafe and three men
got out and entered the place.

The Mexican officers recognized the
squint-eyed runty killer instantly. They
waited till the trio had seated them-
selves in the cafe and given the waitress
their order for fried chicken. Billy
Cook, red-eyed and tense as a bow-
string, had two pistols stuck in his belt.
He was sitting with his back to the door.

Chief Kraus Morales, moving quietly,
walked up behind him and jammed a
pistol against the nape of Cook’s neck.
“Don’t make a move for those guns,” he
ordered, in English, ‘for you’re a dead
man.”

Cook froze, with his hands on the
table. The fingers twitched, but that was
all. His shoulders seemed to slump in
the next moment, and his lips trembled.
He was on the verge of tears as he slow-
ly raised his hands in surrender. His two
captives, Adams and Lovell, were effu-
sive in their thanks to the Mexican
police chief for saving their lives.

The latter had scarcely reached his
office after flying the manacled killer
back to Tijuana when word was received
of an equally dramatic development in
the case.

In Joplin, Missouri that morning,
Detective Chief Carl E. Nutt, question-
ing a young pal of Cook’s who had done
time with him, had picked up a hot
lead. The ex-con told Nutt that Billy
had once shown him an abandoned lead
mine shaft about two miles west of
town where he had played as achild. He-
said Billy had remarked that it would be
“a good place to hide a bouy.”

Chief Nutt hurried .-it to the place,
accompanied by detectives and FBI
agents. They found a child’s shoe on the
frozen ground. Two boards covering the
narrow shaft had been pried loose. One
glance down the black hole with a flash-

Give Happiness
The United Way

light ended the long search for the

osser family, a search which had utiliz-
ed the services of an estimated 4,000
lawmen and volunteers in nearby a
dozen states and Mexico.

The body of a child was floating in
the black water at the bottom of the
shaft. Firemen brought a winch, and a
diver went down and brought up the
five bodies, one by one. The first was
that of three-year-old Pamela Sue Mos-
ser, who had been shot through the
heart. Little Gary Carl had been savage-
ly beaten as well as shot. Ronald Dean,
the seven-year-old, was shot four times
in the chest and head. Carl Mosser was
shot once in the head. His lovely young
wife, Thelma, had been shot once in the
chest.

The hands of the parents and the old-
er boy were lashed behind their backs
with cords from the boys’ cowboy hats.
Carl Mosser’s bonds had been broken
and his wrists were cut, indicating that
he may have been alive when he was
tossed into the mine shaft.

~Beyond all doubt, it was the most.
cold-blooded, fiendish murder in the
memory of residents and law officers of
the Southwest. Gatherings of enraged
citizens seethed with lynch talk
throughout Oklahoma and Missouri.

Literally shoved bodily across the
border by Mexican officers into the
arms of waiting FBI agents, while an
angry crowd muttered, Billy Cook
whimpered that he couldn’t remember a
thing, that he didn’t know anything
about any killings. His story was that he
went on a drunk in Blythe, California
on Christmas Eve. The next thing he
remembered was when he came to in
the Mexican mountains three weeks
later, with a gun in his hand. He was
taken to the San Diego County jail to
await federal action.

Lovell and Adams told the story of
their nightmare experience after stop-
ping to help Cook when they came
upon him beside the stalled Buick. He
pulled a gun and took them captive,
then held them in terror for eight days,
bragging of the killings he had already
committed. They kept constantly on
the move. At night, when they camped
in the open, Billy sat against a tree with
a cocked gun in his lap, and his hostages
couldn’t tell whether he was awake or
asleep.

He told them he planned to sell their
car as soon as things cooled off. Then he
was going to get a boat ride across the
Gulf to Guaymas, and thence make his
way to South America. He was rather
vague about what he planned to do with
his two captives.

After three days behind bars; the kill-
er regained his memory and made a full
confession to FBI agents. He said he had
simply got tired of working for a living
and decided to launch a fulltime career
of crime. Hoping to throw off pursuit
for the robbery of Cy Siwane, he said,
he had forced Carl Mosser to drive a
devious route. They traveled as far west
as Carlsbad, New Mexico, then doubled
back to El Paso. From there they went,
via Houston, up into Arkansas and Mis-
souri. They drove night and day.

When he snatched a few winks of

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ORVILLE PIERCE
(LaPuente, Calif.)
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sleep from time to time, Billy said, he
kept his gun cocked and leveled. A
couple of times, Carl Mosser had tried,
unsuccessfully , to jump him.

The slaughter, he said, took place on
the outskirts of Joplin in the pre-dawn
hours of January 2nd. Billy said he had
agreed to leave the Mossers bound and
gagged, but when a police car passed
them, Mrs. Mosser and the children
started to scream, and Carl Mosser had
tried to stall his motor.

Billy Cook shrugged as he continued,
“JT couldn’t take any more chances.
They were ready to cross me. I pretend-
ed I was tying them up to dump them,
and I plugged them all.”

After he had disposed of the bodies
in the lead mine, he headed back to Tul-
sa. He parked in the ditch on Apache
Road to catch some much-needed sleep,
and the Chevy bogged down. He thumb-
ed his way back west and finally took a
bus to Blythe, California, whence he
had set out on his crime career only a
short time before.

Cook confirmed that he had stopped
Robert Dewey by flashing the red light
atop the sheriff’s patrol car he had stol-
en from the deputy. He claimed he had
not meant to kill Dewey, but when the
salesman dropped his cigarette and
reached down to pick it up, Cook
thought he was reaching for a gun and
he fired.

At this point, the runty, droopy-lid-
ded mass killer admitted that the six
killings he had told about constituted
his total score. He claimed he had been

only bragging when he told Deputy
Waldrip he had slain two other, men.
Then he said a pathetic, astonishing
thing, sounding for ai the world like a
mischievous small ‘boy caught in some
rascality:

“Pm a good boy,” the murderer of
three children and three adults whined.
“T never meant to kill anybody.”

Now Billy Cook became the object
of a tug of war between all the jurisdic-
tions which wanted to try him for
crimes committed in their areas. He was
arraigned in San Diego on the federal
counts, but California and Oklahoma,
which had filed murder charges against
him, wanted the right to try him first.
The federal government, however, was
determined to make an example of Billy
Cook for flagrant interstate and interna-
tional violations, and its charges took
priority.

Returned in manacles and leg irons
to Oklahoma City, the federal grand
jury there indicted him under the Lind-

ergh Law for the Mosser kidnaping
atrocities.

The U.S. attorney announced he
would seek the death penalty, but on
the eve of his trial, Cook changed his
plea to guilty. After a sanity hearing
which indicated the young killer was
sane, within the legal definition of the
term, U.S. District Judge Stephen
Chandler, on March 21, 1951, sentenced
Cook to 60 years on each of the five
kidnap counts, a total of 300 years in
federal prison. He was taken immediate-
ly to Alcatraz, but the Department of

Justice agreed to release him to Californ-
ia for further prosecution.

In November of that year, Billy Cook
was brought from Alcatraz under heavy
guard to face trial in El Centro for the
murder of Robert Hilton Dewey. His
attorney withdrew a not guilty plea, and
the mass killer’s sanity remained the
sole issue. After hearing the stories of
Deputy Waldrip, Arlen Adams and Seth
Lovell, as well as the testimony of
psychiatrists who had examined the de-
fendant, a jury of seven women and five
men found Cook sane and fully respon-
sible for his acts.

Superior Judge Luray J. Mouser
fixed his guilt at first-degree murder,
with no extenuating circumstances. And
on November 28, 1951, Judge Mouser
sentenced the curly-haired killer to die.

Federal authorities released the pri-
soner to San Quentin for execution. Ok-
lahoma authorities expressed themselves
as satisfied that justice would be done.

The California Supreme Court, in
due course, upheld the conviction. Last
-minute legal attempts to save Cook
from the gas chamber were unsuccess-
ful, and on December 12, 1952, almost
exactly two years after his spree of mass
murder and kidnaping, time finally ran
out for the ruthless multiple murderer.

By this time, Billy Cook was squat
and pudgy from heavy eating during his
year on Death Row. Sullen, contemptu-
ous and disdainful, he spurned religious
consolation. He made no reply to the
warden’s traditional ‘‘“Goodbye and God
bless you,” as he was led into the little

79


DETECTIVE CASES

* PEOPLE RECALL with horror the names Belsen and
Dachau and the unspeakable atrocities committed by the
Nazis during World War II. They wonder at the fac-
tors that could have produced such sadistic brutality, and
often write it off to some flaw in German national char-
acter. Yet atrocities of such order. were committed right
here in peacetime. And people in the states where. the
crimes were done compare them to Nazi barbarity.

The curtain went up.on this stark drama when a family
of five decided to make an. auto trip from Atwood, Illinois,
to Albuquerque, New Mexico. They notified a relative in
the latter city and started out on what all of them believed
would be a peaceful tour from the Illinois city to the

southwest ending at the New Mexico capital city.

The relative in Albuquerque received post cards from
his visitors as they crossed the country, drawing nearer and
nearer to him. And then they heard nothing more. A day
_passed with no word. The visiting family was overdue. An-
other day passed. The wornied relative called long distance
to-Atwood and spoke with friends of the family. They knew
nothing. On the third day, Wednesday, the third of January,
the Albuquerque resident heard from the police. It was
Deputy Sheriff. Warren Smith, of Osage County, Oklahoma,
-who discovered the first-signs of a rampage of blood, gore
and murder such as has seldom been equalled in modern
times.

It was shortly past noon ‘that the deputy drove past a
1949 blue Chevrolet automobile, angled in a ditch. Smith
stepped from his car and glanced inside the abandoned

by H. H. Belton

Police officials and volunteer searchers from two states were shocked by the condition of the bodies.

DETECTIVE CASES : A

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green gas chamber.

Cook looked bored as the guards
strapped him into the steel chair. As 51
witnesses watched through the small
windows of the octagonal-shaped gas
chamber, the executioner threw the lev-
er which dropped cyanide pellets into
the acid tank at Billy’s feet. The curling
fumes began to rise at 10:30 a.m. Billy’s
mouth popped open and his head fell
back.

At 10:13 the doctor, listening to the
condemned man’s heartbeat through a
remote stethoscope, pronounced him
dead. :

In the wake of bis execution, oppon-
ents of capital punishment denounced
the action vociferously in all the media,
printed and broadcast, that would listen
to them. Numerous spokesmen demand-
ed to know what putting the young man
to death had accomplished. Again and

again they asked the question:

“Will it bring the murder victims
back to life?”

In the editorial columns of a score of
newspapers throughout the United
States, the question was answered in vir-
tually identical language:

“The execution of Billy Cook will
not bring his victims back to life, but
society can rest secure in the knowledge
that this young man will never have the
opportunity to murder anyone else.”

EDITOR’S NOTE:

Cy Siwane, Arlen Adams and Seth
Lovell are not the real names of the
persons so named in the foregoing
story. Fictitious names have been
used because there is no reason for
public interest in the identities of
these persons.

Torch to Ball Park

a polygraph.
“Did you start the fire at MacArthur
Stadium?” Sergeant Hunter asked him.

“No, sir. I did not,” replied Daly.

But the machine showed a definite
reaction to the question! Detectives
could not see Daly committing such a
crime; they reasoned that he might be
worried about not having turned off the
overhead heater, even though they
panied him it had no relation to the
ire.

After the test, Sergeant Hunter was
certain that Daly had not set any fire
deliberately and that he had told the
truth about leaving the park at 9:30
p.m.

The same day Daly was interrogated
at the Public Safety Building, detectives
learned of an interesting incident which
happened four days earlier,

On June 12th, Daly was at the Stadi-
um trying to get the commissary ready
for the games the next day. At one
point, Daly had told some employes to
nscace - sere erent emsecarrmmnmernenaeen

| ‘This offer is valid in the U.S. only. _

(from page 47)

move a couple of Formica sheets into
the maintenance room.

Before the business manager could go
about his other duties, he was attacked
by a groundskeeper, who was enraged
that materials were being stored in his
room, and began pushing and punching
Daly in the face.

After the polygraph exam cleared
him of any guilt whatsoever, Daly made
a formal complaint against his assailant.
He told investigators that management
had been having trouble with the man in
the past, stating that he had fired him
the previous winter but rehired him in
the spring, although he was still causing
problems,

In the week that ensued, some ball-
players believed to be linked to
gamblers, as well as ticket agents, were
questioned for any possible connection
to the fire. After Daly’s affidavit, police
suspected the groundskeeper had had
some role in the fire.

Officer Busch and Sergeant O’Malley
brought him in for questioning, but
they were unable to learn anything
more than the man’s original story.
After repeated interrogation, he volun-
teered to take a polygraph exam.

After two tests, Sergeant Hunter
knew the man was telling the truth.

The investigation wore on through
the summer months. Any and all leads
were meticulously checked out. All
Busch and O’Malley had to go on was
their still unsubstantiated theory that
three separate fires had been set.

As the winter of 1969 set in, con-
struction crews were restoring the stadi-
um’s normal appearance, but it was not
until February 18, 1970 that investiga-
tors received the break they had been
seeking for so long.

At 9:12 p.m. on that date police on
the north side received a telephone
alarm to the Axe & Arthur Motor Ex-
press Company. Minutes later, patrol-
men and firefighters found the trucking
warehouse filled with white smoke and
flames near the loading dock side of the
building.

‘

Top inco:
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COOK, William

38

E. Gasssd CASP (Imperial) December 12, 1952

WHY KILL THE WHOLE FAMILY?

The mass slaying of so many people shocked the entire
Southwest and recalled the bestiality of the Nazis

Even hardened police officers recoiled at the sight of the slain family,

callously thrown into this pit.

DETECTIVE CASES

* PEOP
Dachau «a
Nazis du:
tors that
often writ
acter. Yer
here in p:
crimes we
The curt
of five dec
to Albuque

the latter c
would be

Polic

DETECTIVE CAS


machine. The key was still in the ignition. Thinking that
someone probably had stepped into the nearby wooded area,

or else had motor trouble and, gone for help, Smith started.

to return to his patrol cruiser and drive on. Some strange
impulse—perhaps a hunch—caused the deputy to change
his mind. He put through a radio message to Tulsa police
headquarters and requested that a wrecker be dispatched
to pull the car to a garage.

In a few minutes the wrecker drove up. Smith followed
it to the garage and began an inspection of the car. He

peered into the rear seat and found it covered by a blanket.
There were spatters of blood on that cover, and some on the
floor. The deputy gingerly picked up a shirt, likewise
crimsoned with blood. It was that of a small boy.

Choking back an angry oath, the deputy immediately
rushed to the garage phone and asked headquarters to send
a photographer and official technicians to the garage. Re-
turning to the car, he continued his gruesome investigation.
Four spent slugs and six empty automatic shells were found
in the rear seat, which had been punctured by four bullet

The sullen suspect (center) was described as ‘“‘mean-eyed”’ by two people whose path he crossed.

40

DETECTIVE CASES

holes. Ther
pools of
bullet hole
“What |
the wreck
“Someb
look of
Deputy
identificat)
Opening t!
quick foot
entered the
County In
Bruce Loy
“Here's
Atwood,
license for
“Strange
Investigator

DETECTIVE C


red by a blanket.
and some on the

uty immediately
iquarters to send
the garage. Re-
me investigation.
hells were found
d by four bullet

holes. There was one bullet hole in the driver’s place. Large
pools of coagulated blood had formed just beneath the
bullet holes.

“What happened here?” The deputy wondered aloud to
the wrecker driver.

“Somebody shot up somebody else, real bad, from the
look of it.”

Deputy Smith, searching further, found a purse and an
identification folder on the floor near the rear seat. He was
opening these when he heard the screech of brakes, then
quick footsteps as plainclothesmen and uniformed officers
entered the garage. They were closely followed by Tulsa
County Investigator Ray Graves and Chief Criminal Deputy
Bruce Lovelace, of the sheriff’s office.

“Here’s a driver’s license issued to Thelma Mosser of
Atwood, Illinois,’ Smith said to the newcomers. “And a
license for a Carl Mosser, same address.”

“Strange that the speedometer shows mileage of 18,600,”
Investigator Graves said, “yet this sticker from a service

station, dated December 28th, shows 15,600. That means
this car has been driven over 3,000 miles in a very short
time.” ‘

A phone call to Atwood, Illinois, revealed that the car
belohged to Carl Mosser, a farmer, and his wife, Thelma,
who had left for a trip west to Albuquerque. A call to the
relative in Albuquerque disclosed that the Mossers and their
three children had never arrived.

News of the mysterious highway discovery spread like a
prairie fire. Rapidly formed posses rushed to the scene
where the car had been found. Shortly after seven P.M.
the police telephone operator reached Deputy Smith in the
office of Detective Chief N. R. Williams. She gave the
deputy phone messages and several numbers to call.

The first call was to a prominent Osage County rancher
who lived in the section where the bloody, bullet-ridden
car had been ditched. “I just heard about you finding that
car,” the rancher told Deputy Smith. “I passed that same
car yesterday morning and a man (Continued on page 65)

A veteran rescue worker was appalled at what he saw when lowered into the abandoned mine shaft.

crossed.
DETECTIVE CASES

DETECTIVE CASES 41


ie jail and re-
He had been

linutes when

er at the bus
‘YS our guy.
nost an hour,
ehaving nerv-
ll just which

wing around

tes.

lianapolis, St.
nt.

that our man
it or Detroit.

tify the cops
eye out for

partner with
ld you figure

Morris made
er at Bride-

ement which
verheard the

idered it for
em to make

ver,” said

y comes

~» going to

ind if he is

it argues he

| if he is to

iy back west,

S buying the
hicago.”

“And the

a car is De-

logical place

) the Michi-
very instant
‘led into the

uself Morris
rtively from
through the

lv dusk. He

zan Avenue.

oit’s version
Street. Mor-

ordered a
ed to allay

is stomach,
wand drank

as oblivious
emory of a
Vay.

ty-cent flop-
€ op

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he fear,: all
ience was
sessed and,
sh himself,
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it of in-
ophouse
y days he

“TIVE CASES

lived this way he never knew.

But he knew that his money was
going, slipping across the bar. And this
was the money with which he had in-
tended to purchase a new car to drive
west.

It was shortly after midnight on the
6th of January when the squad car
turned into Michigan Avenue. At the
wheel was Patrolman Joseph Williams.
Beside him sat Patrolman Charles
Marsh.

As they rolled into the avenue, a
man in a filthy lumber jacket reeled
out of a saloon.

Now, drunks, even drunks in lum-
ber jackets, are common enough on
Michigan Avenue; perhaps neither of-
ficer would have paid the man any at-
tention had he not glanced suddenly at
the prowl car, then dived into the near-
est doorway.

Marsh said, “Better pull up. Let’s
talk to that guy.”

Williams drew the car alongside the
curb. Marsh disembarked and walked
toward the doorway. As he did so, the
big man in the lumber jacket rushed
toward him, his arms flailing. As he
collided heavily with Marsh, Williams
sprang from the car and threw himself
into the fray.

Within five minutes the man was
thoroughly subdued. He was placed un-
der arrest and taken to headquarters.

At first he denied everything. How-
ever, the Chicago fingerprint men had
gotten excellent impressions from the
whiskey bottle which it was known had
been ordered by the fugitive. These
were sent along to Detroit and they

checked with those of “Tom Morris.”

It was then that he switched from a
denial to a claim that the death of Eva
Baker was an accident.

“She rolled me twice,” he said. “The
first time I was asleep. I found her in a
bar and we had a fight. But after that
we made up. Then she rolled me again
and I got mad. So I tied her up. Just to
teach her a lesson. If she hadn’t strug-
gled, she wouldn’t have been hurt.”

A check on the prisoner showed that
he had served time in Nashville, Ten-
nessee, for burglary. His real name, it
appeared, was John R. Waggoner; his
profession, that of a cook in a logging
camp.

Lieutenant John Golden, chief of
Chicago’s Homicide Squad, came to
Detroit and returned Waggoner to the
Windy City by official airplane.

Once in the Cook County jail, where
he had visited his old pal, Culpepper,
Waggoner again changed his story.

Now, he insisted, there had been
another couple in the room with him
and Eva Beker. He had left the trio.
The other couple must have murdered
the girl.

However, he was unable to supply
either the names or any description of
the pair.

The Grand Jury indicted him on a
first-degree murder charge and ordered
him held for trial. On February 10th,
1950, after deliberating for only 28
minutes, a jury found John Waggoner
guilty of the murder of Eva Baker. He
was sentericed by Judge Samuel Ep-
stein to 199 years in the Statesville
Penitentiary.

WHY KILL WHOLE FAMILY?
(Continued from page 41)

hailed me. It was about eight-forty-five
and I was starting for my ranch. This
man stepped out into the road. He
asked if I could help him get the car
out of the ditch. I told him my light
pickup truck couldn’t do it, but that I'd
call a garage and have help sent out.
He said not to bother.”

“What did he look like?”

“Young—in his 20s. Dark hair, near
as I can remember. About medium
height and build. And he had a tattoo
on one arm, I[ think.”

The deputy jotted this down, thanked
the rancher, and hung up. The phone
rang almost immediately. This time it
was a motorist who had interesting in-
formation.

“About that abandoned Chevwvie,” he
said. “I picked up a man there at about
nine yesterday morning. Fellow waved
me down. He wanted a ride to a tele-
phone to get help. I told him I had a
radio-telephone in my car and could call
for help, but he said he would just
ride into town. I let him out at a drug-
store at the Osage Hills shopping cen-
ter.”

DETECTIVE CASES

Deputy Smith went at once to the
shopping center -and interviewed the
employees of the drugstore. They re-
membered the man when the deputy
gave them the description.

“He walked over to me and asked
for change of a dollar bill so he could
call a cab. I gave him change, then he
came back and asked me to dial the
phone for him,” the girl clerk said.
“Imagine that! He sure was nervous.”

HE description both clerks gave

tallied with that given by the motor-
ist and the rancher. Thirty-six hours
had passed since the man had been seen
near the car, yet teletypes flashed the
description of the stranger, and the
Oklahoma Highway patrol set up road-
blocks in the hope that he was still
in the area.

Dawn of January 4th found officers,
flanked by hundreds of volunteers, em-
barking upon one of the biggest man-
hunts in the history of the Southwest—
as well as a search for a couple and
three children believed to be the victims
of a crazed killer.

But who was the slayer? Was he a
mad hitchhiker the Mossers had picked
up? The investigators knew by now
that the Mossers had had breakfast
at Claremore, 25 miles east of Tulsa.

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What had happened between there and
Tulsa?

The day wore on. At nightfall the
weary searchers, grim and dejected, re-
ported no success. Deputy Smith, red-
eyed from fatigue, was sprawled in a
chair in the office of Tulsa County
Sheriff George Blaine when the phone
rang. Deputy Sheriff Roy Rains picked
it up, handed it to Smith. “Wichita
Falls, Texas, is calling you.”

It was Sheriff Hammett Vance. The

trail of the Mossers and their mysteri-
ous traveling companion had been pick-
ed up in Wichita Falls.

“We'll be there as soon as we can
make it,” Smith told the sheriff.

But before he could start the trip, he
had a visitor. It was the relative from
Albuqueque. He had driven at break-
neck speed to Tulsa to join in the hunt.
Smith told him the whole story, from
finding of the bloodstained car to the
call from Wichita Falls. “We're leaving
for Wichita Falls right now,” he advised.

Smith suggested that the relative get
some rest, then made arrangements for
Deputy G. W. Elbert, head of Sheriff

Blaine’s air patrol, to fly the weary man °

to Wichita Falls the next morning.

When the Oklahoma officers arrived
in the Texas city early on January 6th,
they found Texas Rangers and FBI
agents had centered their search in that
area for the missing family. By the time
the Mosser relative flew in, a few hours
later, the investigators were sure they
had picked up the trail. For they had
heard an almost unbelievable story from
the operator of a combination filling
station and grocery ‘store at Wichita
Falls.

This man said that about six P.M.
on December 30th a car with two men
in the front seat,.and a woman and three
children in the back, had stopped for
gasoline. The auto had been a 1949
Chevrolet with Illinois license plates.

“After I filled the tank the driver

asked if I would bring them some lunch .

meat,” he said. “I had a customer inside,
and I told the stranger he would have
to come inside the store for the meat.
So the two men came in.

“I went behind the counter and
started slicing the meat,” he went on.
“Suddenly the man who had been driv-
ing got behind the other fellow: and
grabbed his arms. He yelled out: ‘Help
me, fellows, he’s got a gun! He’s been
with me and my wife and kids all day
and he’s trying to kill us!’

“I grabbed my pistol from under the
counter and told the man: ‘Turn him
loose, I’ve got him covered,’ but the
man just held on tighter. So I. ordered
them to get out of my place of business,
The man in the back dragged the other
one to the door. Suddenly the man in
front turned on him and they knocked’
out a window pane. The man in front
pulled out a gun and told the other to
get back in the car. I started after them,
but my customer warned me to stay in-
side. As they drove off the customer
got in his pickup and started chasing
them. He came back in a few minutes
and said he had stopped following be-
66

cause they had shot at him.”

The operator held out'‘a hat. “Here’s
a hat the driver lost during the scuffle.”

Mosser’s relative jerked the hat from
his hand. He pointed to the inside band.
The hat had been sold in Decatur,
Illinois. “My wife was with Thelma
when she bought this for Carl. She
wanted to get me one just like it, but
they didn’t have another in the same
shade.”

Back at Sheriff Vance’s office Rang-

ers Jay Banks, Jim Geer and Ernest
Daniels’ announced that a man from
Tahoka, Texas, was being brought. to

Wichita Falls. He had been robbed and

kidnaped by a hitchhiker near Okla-

an City on the morning of December
Oth.

It was just before dinner that the
witness, accompanied by a ranger,
walked into the sheriff’s office. He told
the officers he had stopped in Lubbock,
Texas, about one A.M. on December
30th to fill his car at an all-night service
station. “A fellow walked up to the car
and asked where I was going. I told
him Tulsa, and he said he was going to
Joplin. I offered him a ride. He hardly
said a word during the trip, but right
outside of Oklahoma City he stuck a
gun in my ribs. He ordered me out of
the car and shoved me into the trunk.
We had driven several miles when I
pried the lock open with a tire tool.’
He had left the pavement and was on a
dirt road. He slowed down once, and
that was when I jumped out. He braked
that car to a’ stop, and jumped out
after me, waving his gun. But I just
ran that much faster and got away. We
found my car later about six miles
from there, on U.S. 66, the highway
from Oklahoma City to Tulsa.”

“Would you know him?” Ranger
Geer asked.

“You bet. He had droopy eyes and
they were the meanest I ever saw. But
this may mean more to you than a
description: I found a receipt in my car,
made out to a W. E. Cook for a gun
bought in a pawn shop in El Paso.”

“Cook?” the officers glanced up quick-
ly, puzzled. Who was W. E. Cook?
Could he be the squint-eyed kidnaper of
this motorist and the Mossers? The
police files were worked over to bring
out the answers,

A William E. Cook Jr. of Joplin,
Missouri, had been released from the
Missouri penitentiary in June, 1950, He
was 23 years old—on December 30th,
the day the Mossers vanished. Cook
was a former tough juvenile delinquent,
who had entered a reformatory at the
age of 12. Had he graduated into a
monstrous mass murderer?

OVER wirephoto facilities a picture
of the suspect was flashed from
Jefferson City, Missouri. Within min-
utes, witnesses in Wichita Falls and
Tulsa were looking at the photo. They
all identified the man as the stranger
seen with Carl Mosser, or as the
stranger they had. given lifts to.

Now the officers knew the identity of
the killer suspect they sought, but where

were the bodies of his victims hidden—
if, indeed, the bloodstains and bullet
holes correctly indicated that there were
murder victims in this mysterious case?
In Oklahoma City, the FBI filed a
complaint before U. S. Commissioner
Paul Showlater, charging Cook with the
only tangible crime thus far discovered:
the kidnaping of the motorist who had
escaped..Hardly had the ink dried when
the horror trail the trigger-happy gun-
man was forging was picked up again.

The badman had this time kidnaped
a deputy sheriff at Blythe, California.
The reports clicked in over the teletypes.

The deputy, Homer Waldrip, said he
had gone to a motel in’ Blythe after
hearing that Cook was being sought.
He was acquainted with the suspect,
Who. had once been a dishwasher in a
Blythe cafe where Waldrip’s wife also
worked. On Christmas Eve, however,
the Missouri convict had left California
for his home in Joplin.

“I thought I would just check to see
‘if he’d come back to Blythe,” Waldrip

declared. He had gone to the motel
about noon, January 4th. “I knocked
on the door and Cook opened up. He
shoved a gun in my stomach and
ordered me into my car.”

The deputy went.on to relate a har-
rowing tale of being driven over the
lonely desert until ‘Cook finally halted
the car. Muttering something about a
“favor. you did me,” the convict ordered
Waldrip to lie down, then bound him
and left the deputy on the roadside. It
was not until January 6th that Deputy
Waldrip managed to free himself and
make his way back to BlytHe. His car
had been abandoned five miiles from
where he had been trussed.

“But here’s the most important thing,”
‘Waldrip said. “During the drive Cook
kept bragging. He said he had slain
a family of five, and had also killed
two other persons!”

The family of five could be none
other than the Mossers, the investigators
realized. They had hardly got over the
shock of this grim revelation when FBI
agents reported another gruesome dis-
covery. A car had been found 35 miles
south of Mexicali in lower California.
Inside was the slumped body of Robert
H. Dewey, 32, of Seattle, Washington.
He had been shot to death. Whatever
story Dewey might have told, had he
lived, could not now help the police;
but they were certain that his death
was connected to the murder spree of
the crazed highway gunman, William
Cook.

The greatest manhunt in the annals
of the southwest was now underway.
And a new story of sinister import now
came to the ears of Deputy Warren
Smith and Investigator Graves. The
owner of a small cafe near Winthrop,
Arkansas, reported that the death car—
the 1949 Chevrolet—had been at her
place at four-thitty p.m. New Year’s
Day.

“Mosser came into my cafe with that
‘man”—she pointed at a photograph of
Cook. “He just stood there with one
hand in his coat pocket, and kept look-

DETECTIVE CASES

ing out at t!
and three c!
She descr
two men. P<
articles wer
items found
were now c
the rugged
tiny commu:
uncover the
cording to |
California,

that he had
added that t
The drag
intensified e
indicated th
have fallen
gunman. Ai
frightened 1
spectors nol
uary 8th t!
return home
In Oklah
agent of the
accusing Cc
of kidnapin
ers, despite
mot yet b
Johnston \
Sid McMat
January 141
upon all cit
in a widesp:
family. But
the 14th, ab
was believe
victims.
The follo
tense and
appointment!
strategy. Th
trified the e
had been ca
He was |
in a town
California |
cisco Kraus
another offi
and the tw«
a Street in
Rosalia.
Morales
man and w
from his be
ered withou
Hardly h:
received, w!
served time
penitentiary
Carl E. Nu
a tip. Cook
talked of a:
block fron
spent his be
spot where
of the Moss

HIEF *
called
and two F
powerful se
west of dow
their auto,
the abando:
had mention
one agent st
over. When
DETECTIVE ©


| “ ae
idden— ing out at the car. There was a woman
i bullet and three children in the car.”
‘re were She described purchases made by the
1s case? two men. Police were satisfied that these
filed a articles were similar to bloodstained FEES y
issioner items found in Mosser’s car. The officers 1
vith the were now convinced that somewhere in relieve your BACKSTRAIN!
overed: the rugged hills between Tulsa and the ‘ HF
vho had tiny community of Winthrop they would with n eW Non . Slip ’
d when uncover the bodies of the Mossers. Ac- ee
py gun- cording to Deputy Sheriff Waldrip, of —ietintiey A
again. California, the gunman had boasted WEL-KINGS Ig a gine
idnaped that he had. slain a family of five, and
lifornia. added = he’d shot two other persons. @ Pat, Pend.
eletypes. The dragnet for the killer was now CDi C ( ) t B |
said he intensified even more, for a new report tn ESS eau Y e t
he after indicated that two other persons might : ; : ; ;
sought. have fallen victim to the rampaging Strictly for the ladies! New Princess Beauty Belt relieves strain
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co Tet : frightened relatives of two young pro- you that welcome rested feeling that lets you work or play
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however, uary 8th that the pair had failed to feminine in style. Weighs just 4 ounces—hugs the,
alifornia return home after a prospecting trip. your hips like the skin itself. Adjusts in seconds. y NS )
In Oklahoma, D. E. Bryce, special Foam rubber back pad for extra-gentle support. /¢ Z VS
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Waldrip accusing Cook under the Lindbergh Act long garter attachments available—50c for set of 4.
ie motel of kidnaping and murdering the Moss- Money-back guarantee if returned within 30 days
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| up. He not yet been recovered. eh NEL-KING Products, Inc., Dept. BK-72L 811 Wyandotte St., Kansas City 5, Mo. -
ich and Johnston Murray of Oklahoma an I
Sid McMath of Arkansas proclaimed ' NEL-EING Fite cae ;
te a har- January 14th as “Mosser Day,” calling } Rush me............Princess Beauty Belts i
over the upon all citizens of both states to join } digg Hios, vings (0:08 Si ee I Naame.ccccsssssssssssssssscssvesccnsnssenssnnnnesstntnansscc nantes 1
ly halted in a widespread search for the missing ! understand my, full warehase | Hitce or '
about. a family. But on that Sunday morning, : & Fe cacsjacouseneosivesecsnsisivivesstounoncnbnenensecnene® :
t ordered the 14th, a blizzard swept the path Cook H corm eccioneh 0 es con c Stat i
‘und him was believed to have taken with his H (We prepay postage, except COD's) To Ae BD csccversssdinr H
idside. It victims. 1 o —_* 50c for 4 garter attach- !
1 Deputy The following day the investigators, ----
iself and tense and worn. from numerous dis-
His car appointments, met to figure out a new
les from strategy. Then came the news that elec-
trified the entire nation. William Cook
it thing,” had been captured!
ive Cook He was under arrest, and being held
vad slain in a town some 600 miles below the
so. killed California border. Police Chief Fran-
cisco Kraus Morales, of Tiajuana, and
be none another officer had spotted the killer
estigators and the two El Centro prospectors on
over the a street in the little town of San
vhen FBI Rosalia.
some dis- Morales swiftly strode to the gun- CA P Ss U. LES
35 miles man and whisked a .32, caliber pistol
alifornia. from his belt. The mad slayer surrend- A D 1A :é !
of Robert ered without a struggle. .
ois Hardly had word of this captors _ ;
/hatever received, when an ex-convict who ha 4
i, had he served time with Cook in the Missouri XI1ON PERFECTION
he police; penitentiary called Chief of Detectives IMPORTANT
his ger Parl BE, Nutt in Joplin and gave them|] J. iio pian i The HALSION PLAN © Awonderful new vitamin formula.
spree Oo a tip. Cook, the ex-con said, had often ion is F
William taiked of an old mine that was only a fully guaranteed. The Me nis ir host * No more sticky ointments.
block from where the gunman had Allan Drug Co. stands each order e No more greasy creams.
he annals spent his boyhood. Perhaps this was the behind every capsule. ¥ 9%.
underway. spot where he had secreted the bodies bog —_ — ° Full 30 day supply $3.9.
Spee ine of the Mosser family. Pe yg a [ALLAN DRUG CO. beat 1223
ives. The HIEF Nutt listened closely, then complexion. Because = | 5880 Hollywood Bivd., Hollywood 28, Calif. |
sie tap called Detective Walter Gamble ae ype rs alee 1 OF mn the peta. ee ee ee |
feath car— and two FBI agents. They obtained bye? he cee “ CO Please rush C.0.D. 30-day supply of Halsion,
en at her powerful searchiiahte and raced a mile % sstsstactey: and Halgson ie s yin “aa if | am not satisfied | |
ew Year’s west of downtown Joplin. Jumping from jo hte wa is A ast OF INTERRAL /may return the unu capsules or empty bottle for |
their auto, they ran across a field to ss en wenicarvan AND ARE prompt refund.
> with that the abandoned mine shaft the ex-con in Canede. put ~ PIMPLES ws | Nome |
ograph of had mentioned. As they neared the shaft blalSion = | aaa
with one one agent suddenly stopped and stooped 2p By ALLAN |
kept look- over. When he straightened up, he held | city Zone ———State ~
"IVE CASES over, What. teiscanpmees an be MES Ce Oee TT =


hailed me. It was about eight-forty-five
and I was starting for my ranch. This
man stepped out into the road. He
asked if I could help him get the car
out of the ditch. I told him my light
pickup truck couldn't do it, but that I'd
call a garage and have help sent out.
He said not to bother.”

“What did he look like?”

“Young—in his 20s. Dark hair, near
as I can remember. About medium
height and build. And he had a tattoo
on one arm, I think.”

Killer, center, is led back to jail cell to awail death in gas chamber.

The deputy jotted this down, thanked
the rancher, and hung up. The phone
rang almost immediately. This time it
was a motorist who had interesting in-
formation.

“About that abandoned Chewvie,” he
said. “I picked up a man there at about
nine yesterday morning. Fellow waved
me down. He wanted a ride to a tele-
phone to get help. I told him I had a
radio-telephone in my car and could call
for help, but he said he would just
ride into town. I let him out at a drug-

“4 store at the Osage Hills shopping cen-

Deputy Smith went at once to the —

shopping center and interviewed the
employees of the drugstore. They re-
membered the man when the deputy
gave them the description.

“He walked over to me and asked
for change of a dollar bill so he could
call a cab. I gave him change, then he
came back and asked me to dial the
phone for him,” the girl clerk said.
“Imagine that! He sure was nervous.”

igor description both clerks gave
tallied with that given by the motor-
ist and the rancher. Thirty-six hours
had passed since the man had been ee
near the car, yet teletypes flashed the

' description of the stranger, and the

Oklahoma Highway patrol set up road-
blocks in the hope that he was still

, in the area.

Dawn of January 4th found officers,
flanked by hundreds of volunteers, em-
barking upon one of the biggest man-
hunts in the history of the Southwest—
as well as a search for a couple and
three children believed to be the victims
of a crazed killer.

But who was the slayer? Was he a
mad hitchhiker the Mossers had picked
up? the investigators knew by now
that the Mossers had had breakfast
at Claremore, 25 miles east of Tulsa.
What had happened between there and
Tulsa?

The day wore on. At nightfall the
weary searchers, grim and dejected, re-
ported no success. Deputy Smith, red-
eyed from fatigue, was sprawled in a
chair in the office of Tulsa County
Sheriff George Blaine when the phone
rang. Deputy Sheriff Roy Rains picked
it up, handed. it to Smith. “Wichita
Falls, Texas, is calling you.” :

It was Sheriff Hammett Vance. The

trail of the Mossers and their mysteri-
ous traveling companion had been pick-
ed up in Wichita Falls.

“We'll be there as scon as we can
make it,” Smith told the sheriff.

But before he could start the trip, he
had a visitor. It was the relative from
Albuqueque. He had driven at break-
neck speed to Tulsa to join in the hunt.
Smith told him the whole story, from
finding of the. bloodstained car to the
call from Wichita Falls. “We're leaving
for Wichita Falls right now,” he advised.

Smith suggested that the relative get
some rest, then made arrangements for
Deputy G. W. Elbert, head of Sheriff
Blaine’s air patrol, to fly the weary man
to Wichita Falls the next morning.

When the Oklahoma officers arrived
in the Texas city early on January 6th,
they found Texas Rangers and FBI
agents had centered their search in that
area for the missing family. By the time
the Mosser relative flew in, a few hours
later, the investigators were sure they
had picked up the trail. For they haa
heard an almost unbelievable story from
the operator of a combination filling

ae CePA aS

cmtang OT

Shackled to a U.S. Marshal,

1Z

killer
is led to Alcatraz for 300-year term.

Be 2 = es Bet es

Sheriff Warren Smith (back to camera)
points to tire marks from death car
(above). Killer's body is removed

(below) from San Quentin for burial.

x

station and grocery store at Wichita
Falls.

This man said that about six P.M.
on December 30th a car with two men
in the front seat, and a woman and three
children in the back, had stopped for
gasoline. The auto had been a 1949
Chevrolet with Illinois license plates. |

“After I filled the tank the driver
asked if I would bring them some lunch
meat,” he said. “I had a customer inside,
and I told the stranger he would have
to come inside the store for the meat.
So the two men came in.

“I went behind the counter and
started slicing the meat,” he went on.
“Suddenly the man who had been driv-
ing got behind the other fellow and
grabbed his arms. He yelled out: ‘Help
me, fellows, he’s got a gun! He’s been
with me and my wife and-kids all day
and he’s trying to kill us!’

“I grabbed my pistol from under the
counter and told the man: ‘Turn him
loose, I’ve got him covered,’ but the
man just held on tighter. So I ordered
them to get out of my place of business.
The man in the back dragged the other
one to the door. Suddenly the man in
front turned on him and they knocked
out a window pane. The man in front
pulled out a gun and told the other to
get back in the car. I started after them,
but my customer warned me to stay in-
side. As they drove off the customer
got in his pickup and started chasing
them. He came back in a few minutes
and said he had stopped following be-
cause they had shot at him.”

The operator held out a hat. “Here's
a hat the driver lost during the scuffle.”
_Mosser’s relative jerked the hat from
his hand. He pointed to the inside band.
The hat had-.been sold in Decatur,
Illinois. “My wife was with Thelma
when she bought this for Carl. She
wanted to get me one just like it, but

Close-up of blood-stained blanket
(arrow) found in back seat of Mosser
car. Slugs indicate violent death.

they didn’t have another in the same
shade.”

Back at Sheriff Vance’s office Rang-

ers Jay Banks, Jim Geer and Ernest
Daniels announced that a man from
Tahoka, Texas, was being brought to

Wichita Falls. He had been robbed and

kidnaped by a hitchhiker near Okla-

a City on the morning of December
th. ‘

It was just before dinner that the
witness, accompanied by a ranger,
walked into the sheriff’s office. He told
the officers he had stopped in Lutbock,
Texas, about one a.M. on December

(Continued on page 48)

AO ae

a child’s shoe in his hand.

Chief Nutt hurried on ahead, found
that two boards covering the shaft had
been pried loose—recently.

“Bring the searchlights!”

The beams were turned down into
the black of the shaft and the sudden
illumination revealed the body of a
child, floating on the water below.

The officers summoned the local fire
department, and a winch was rushed to

the scene. A platform of wood was hur-
riedly built to be lowered by winch
cables into the shaft. A veteran rescue
worker, Henry Cook, was let down into
the cavern. He soon tugged at the cable
and was slowly raised to the surface.

As he came into sight he was holding
the corpse of 3-year-old Pamela Sue
Mosser. Again he descended, and re-
turned this time with the body of Gary
Carl Mosser, 5, then that of Ronald
Dean, 7. He next brought up the bodies
of the parents, Thelma and Carl Mosser.

Ronald and his mother and father
had been bound with cord from the
children’s cowboy hats. Each member
of the family had been shot at least
once. This was more horrible than even
the war-time atrocities!

In his jail cell in San Diego, Cali-
fornia, the badman was sullen when he
heard that the bodies of his victims had
been retrieved. On January 19th, he
suddenly confessed to FBI agents the
story of the murder of the Mossers, the
most heinous ever written in the crime
annals of the United States. “On De-
cember 20th, I held up and robbed a
motorist,” Cook said. “I took his car,
but then I got to thinking the police
would be looking for that car, so I
abandoned it. Later that afternoon I
stopped another car on the highway. It

was the Mosser tamily. I pointed a gun
at them and climbed in. We drove on
to Oklahoma City and circled around
for about an hour, maybe a little longer.
Then we headed west on Highway 66
to Wichita Falls, Texas.

“We went into a grocery store and
Mosser jumped me. We broke a win-
dow in the scuffle. Mosser screamed to
the grocer that he was being kidnaped
and his family would be killed. I got
control, and got Mosser back in the car.
We drove southwest.

“I told Mosser to drive to Carlsbad.
Mosser jumped me again at Carlsbad
and tried to escape. I told him then if
it happened again I would kill them all.
In El Paso, I saw a police car and told
Mosser to turn around and drive to
Houston. We drove through Houston
and on to Winthrop, Arkansas. Then
we headed for Joplin. Near Joplin, Mrs.
Mosser got hysterial. The kids got
scared and began screaming. I tied all
of them up, except Mosser. He was
driving. At the outskirts of Joplin, a
police car drove by and looked at us. I
got a little nervous but the cops drove
away. Mrs. Mosser got hysterial again,
and Mosser tried to stop the car.

“TI shot them. I shot them all, and I
drove the car to an old abandoned mine
in Joplin. I left the bodies in the shaft.
I got back in the car and drove to Tulsa,
Oklahoma, but the car got stuck in the
mud. So I left it and started back to
Blythe. I hitchhiked part of the way,
came the rest by bus. In Blythe I ran
into Waldrip. I pulled a gun and took
him with me. Out in the desert I tied
him up in a blanket and left him. I took
his money, his gun, and the sheriff’s
car.

“It was near Ripley in the Laguna
Palo Verde area that I used the red

light on the sheriff’s car to stop another
auto. That was Dewey. I made him
drive toward Yuma. He was pretty
nervous and dropped his cigarette. When
he reached to pick it up, I shot him in
the side. I thought he was reaching for
a gun. He grabbed me and we struggled
around in the car. He got the door
open and was falling out when I shot
him again. I left him out there in the
desert and headed for Mexico. I cross-
ed the border at Mexicali and drove to
San Felipe. There wasn’t much there,
so I drove about 35 miles where I had
trouble with the car. At daybreak, a
couple of prospectors stopped by and
asked if I needed any help.

“I stuck them up and made them
drive me along the Mexican side of
the border from Mexicali to Tiajuana.
In a place called Alaska, I told the
prospectors to bury the license plates
which I had taken from Dewey’s car.
Then we drove to Tiajuana and down
the coast to Ensenada. Below Ensenada
we turned off toward San Rosalia.”

It was at San Rosalia that Cook met
Chief Morales, and his downfall.

The trigger-happy gunman who had
murdered six persons—three adults and
three children—was returned to Okla-
homa City on Sunday afternoon, Janu-
ary 20th, 1951. Two days later, U. S.
District Attorney Robert E. Shelton
presented the incredibly brutal story to
a grand jury, and Cook was quickly in-
dicted. The district attorney declared
he would demand the death penalty for
the 23-year-old gunman who had written
a page of horror into crime records
with his blazing pistol. Following a trial
wherein a tremendous case was pre-
sented against William Cook, that page
was marked finished, and turned forever
in the San Quentin gas chamber. *

WOMEN DON’T JUST VANISH

(Continued from page 45)

trying to enter the hardware store could
not get in. The door, they told him, was
locked. Where was Bernice Worden?

“Probably went off deer hunting,” he
decided. “I know her son went out to
the woods earlier.”

That evening Frank Worden came in
from his hunting jaunt and stopped at
the filling station. The attendant asked
if his mother was ill.

“No. Why?”

“Store’s been closed most the whole
day. She go hunting?”

“No,” Worden said, and hurried over
to the hardware store.

He tried the door and found it lock-
ed. He had not taken his key to the
store with him while hunting, and had
to go home to pick one up, He came
back quickly, opened the door, and
went inside. Bernice Worden did not
answer her son’s call. The words barely
died on his lips when he noticed with
68

alarm that the cash register was miss-
ing from its usual place on one counter.
More alarming were spots of blood on
the floor.

The trail of blood led to the rear of
the building where the delivery truck
was customarily parked. But Worden
could find no truck. A special deputy
sheriff; Frank Worden immediately re-
ported the disappearance of his mother
to Sheriff Arthur Schley of Waushara
County, whose headquarters were in
Wautoma.

Schley, a six-foot, 240-pound giant,
had been appointed sheriff of Waushara
County by the governor only six weeks
before. He had worked for many years
with the highway department and had
been a deputy for five years before his
appointment to the top lawman post in
the county. On a slim budget, he had a
staff of three men, plus a dozen special
deputies.

EWS of the disappearance of the
popular Plainfield businesswoman
had spread through town. A resident

came forward to report that the Worden

delivery truck was parked in a lovers’
lane just inside the village limits. The
sheriff, after a brief conversation with
the missing woman’s son and the filling
station attendant, hurried to examine
the truck.

A few bloodstains were found in the
vehicle, but Sheriff Schley was more
interested in the double set of car tracks
in the dirt.

“Looks to me as if the killer—if the
blood means it was a murder—parked
his own car here and walked to the
hardware store,” he observed. “After
shooting or knocking Mrs. Worden un-
conscious he probably carted her here
in the delivery truck, then switched the
body to his car and drove off.”

Schley questioned the gas station man
about customers he had seen entering
the store early that morning. The op-
erator shrugged. He had been working
and had only noticed the store open at
eight, and the truck leaving at nine-
thirty.

“We keep a sales book,” Frank Wor-
den told the sheriff. “It should show
what sales she made this morning.”

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& MAN'S INHUMANITY TO MAN has long shocked
the more sensitive people of the world. The names Belsen™—-2
and Dachau and the unspeakable atrocities committed by,

Hitler during World War II-are remembered with horror.

It is difficult. to believe some of these crimes‘can be. of
matched right here in the United States during peacetime. = i
; But brutality 1s not limited to wartime. The story that
follows proves that beyond any question. Vang
E “The curtain went up on this stark drama when a family
‘ : by LESLIE GOMEZ of five decided to make an auto trip from Atwood, Ilhnois,

10. Albuquerque, New Mexico. They notified a relative in =

The suspect was held
for kidnappings—a_
death rap—but they |

were the least of

his crimes—what ¢
ves. Dead family set out on ¥acation car trip.”

Decomposed bodies of corpses are photographed and examined for cl

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i; ; ben vy 7 5 x : Me — se ore % ere ~ ie . . CE OapL seis waters trate eet 54 - Webs, | Sac - ™ an
him for was murder == el eee oF BA: eri B A ENE alee SY CRO ae

at least six!

Peg co-sie <a $ . Agee
Mees
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be Ole aid

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Ex-convict (above) is sought in
connection with grisly death of

Carl Mosser, his wife and three

- children, missing for three weeks
before their bodies were found
floating on water in abandoned mine.

JRA co ae ati

16

*yoo0

DETECTIVE CASES, October, 1977.

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the latter city and started out on what all of them believed
would be a peaceful tour from the Illinois city to the
southwest ending at the city in central New Mexico.

The relative in Albuquerque received post cards from
his visitors as they crossed the country, drawing nearer and
nearer to him. And then they heard nothing more. A day
passed with no word. The visiting family was overdue. An-
other day passed. The worried relative called long distance
to Atwood and spoke with friends of the family. They knew
nothing. On the third day, Wednesday, the third of January,
the Albuquerque resident heard from the police. It was
Deputy Sheriff Warren Smith, of Osage County, Oklahoma,
who discovered the first signs of a rampage of blood, gore
and murder such as has seldom been equalled in modern
times.

It was shortly past noon’ that the deputy drove past a
1949 blue Chevrolet automobile, angled in a ditch. Smith
stepped from his car and glanced inside the abandoned
machine. The key was still in the ignition. Thinking that
someone probably had stepped into the nearby wooded area,
or else had motor trouble and, gone for help, Smith started
to return to his patrol cruiser and drive on. Some strange
impulse—perhaps a hunch—caused the deputy to change
his mind. He put through a radio message to Tulsa police
headquarters and requested that a wrecker be dispatched
to pull the car to a garage.

In a few minutes the wrecker drove up. Smith followed
it to the garage and began an inspection of the car. He
peered into the rear seat and found it covered by a blanket.
There were spatters of blood on that cover, and some on the

Body of Carl Mosser is hoisted from

Fal

mine to surface by Fireman Henry of Joplin, bending over body on cradle.

floor. The deputy gingerly picked up a_ shirt, likewise
crimsoned with blood. It was that of a small boy.

Choking back an angry oath, the’ deputy immediately .

rushed to the garage phone and asked headquarters to send
a photographer and official technicians to the garage. Re-
turning to the car, he continued his gruesome investigation,
Four spent slugs and six empty automatic shells were found
in the rear seat, which had been punctured by four bullet
holes. There was one bullet hole in the driver's place. Large
pools of coagulated blood had formed just beneath the
bullet holes.

“What happened here?” The deputy wondered aloud to
the wrecker driver.

“Somebody shot up somebody else, real bad, from the -

look of it.” :

Deputy Smith, searching further, found a purse and an
identification folder on the floor near the rear seat. He was
opening these when he heard the screech of brakes, then
quick footsteps as plainclothesmen and uniformed. officers
entered the garage. They were closely followed by Tulsa
County Investigator Ray Graves and Chief Criminal Deputy
Bruce Lovelace, of the sheriff's office.

“Here’s a driver’s license issued to Thelma Mosser of .

Atwood, Illinois,” Smith said to the newcomers. “And a
license for a Carl Mosser, same address.”

“Strange that the speedometer shows mileage of 18,600,”":
Investigator Graves said, “yet this sticker from a service -

station, dated December 28th, shows 15,600. That means
this car has been driven over 3,000 miles in a very short
time.”

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Travelling across country, the Mosser's were reported missing , believed dead when blood-splattered car found.

A phone call to Atwood, Illinois, revealed that the car the police telephone operator reached Deputy Smith in the
belonged to Carl Mosser, a farmer, and his wife, Thelma, office of Detective Chief N. R. Williams. She gave the
who had left for a trip west to Albuquerque. A call to the deputy phone messages and several numbers to call.
relative in Albuquerque disclosed that the Mossers and their The first call was to a prominent Osage County rancher
three children had never arrived. who lived in the section where the bloody, bullet-ridden

News of the mysterious highway discovery spread like a car had been ditched. “I just heard about you finding that
prairie fire. Rapidly formed posses rushed to the scene car,” the rancher told Deputy Smith. “I passed that same
where the car had been found. Shortly after seven P.M. car yesterday morning and a man (Continued on page aa

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background had certainly played a large
part in shaping his character. His father
was a roistering alcoholic, arrested often
for non-support of his family. He finally
deserted them completely in 1948 and
vanished,

Herbert’s mother had borne 21 chil-
dren! Five were born dead, six were lost
in infancy. from dysentery and neglect,
seven were wards of the state through
their childhood, and the three oldest
boys were constantly in trouble. The
mother died in 1954.

Herbert was first in court at the age
of 11 and was branded an incorrigible.
His record of breaking and eniering
charges is almost endless. He admitted
that between April 22, 1955, and Octo-
ber 5, 1955, he committed 91 robberies!
He was sentenced to Jackson Prison at
the age of 15.

His brother, Gordon, now serving a
27-year term in an Alabama prison was
called “Detroit’s champion: boy burglar”
at the age of 20. Gordon, when he was
15, robbed 32 homes in 25 days. In
1947, Father Flanagan tried to save
Gordon by taking him to Boys’ Town.
Gordon ran away after three days. On
his way back to Detroit, he committed

seven more robberies.

Such was the history of the man
charged with the murder»

Arraigned in Recorder’s Court on
February 15th, the prisoner repudiated
his alleged confession and pleaded inno-
cent to a charge of first-degree murder.
He claimed that he had been forced to
confess by police brutality. He spoke
with reporters but was unable to show
a single mark on his body that could
be attributed to the police. There were
no cuts, bruises or abrasions.

Chief of Detectives Thomas Cochill
said of the prisoner’s claims, “This has
become the accepted practice of some
ex-convicts.*

“They charge police brutality in an
attempt to create a symnathetic attitude.

“We as police officers accept the fact
that in almost every instance persons
who have made complete confessions
and admissions make complete denials
in court.”

The validity of Douglas’ claim will
be tested when he is brought to trial. *

Editor’s Note:
Deison, Phil Skiros, and Barney Flee-
son are fictitious.

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THE BUTCHERING BEAST
(Continued from page 21)

30th to fill his car at an all-night service
station. “A fellow walked up to the car
and asked where I was going. I told
him Tulsa, and he said he was going to
Joplin. I offered him a ride. He hardly
said a word during the trip, but right
outside of Oklahoma City he stuck a
gun in my ribs. He ordered me out of
the car and shoved me into the trunk.
We had driven several miles when I
pried the lock open with a tire tool.
He had left the pavement and was on a
dirt road. He slowed down once, and
that was when I jumped out. He braked
that car to a stop, and jumped out
after me, waving his gun. But I just
ran that much faster and got away. We
found my car later about six miles
from there, on U.S. 66, the highway
from Oklahoma City to Tulsa.”

“Would you know him?”
Geer asked.

“You bet. He had droopy eyes and
they were the meanest I ever saw. But
this may mean more to you than a
description: I found a receipt in my car,
made out to a W. E. Cook for a gun
bought in a pawn shop in El Paso.”

“Cook?” the officers glanced up quick--
ly, puzzled. Who was W. E. Cook?
Could he be the squint-eyed kidnaper of
this motorist and the Mossers? The
police files were worked over to bring
out the answers.

A William .E. Cook Jr. of Joplin,
Missouri, had been released from the
Missouri penitentiary in June, 1950. He
was 23 years old—on December 30th,
the day the Mossers vanished. Cook
was a former tough juvenile delinquent,
who had entered a reformatory at the

Ranger:

age of 12. Had he graduated into a
monstrous mass murderer?

VER wirephoto facilities a picture

of the suspect was flashed from;
Jefferson City, Missouri. Within min-.
utes, witnesses in Wichita Falls and °
Tulsa were looking at the photo. They
all identified the man as the stranger
seen with Carl Mosser, or as the
stranger they had given lifts to.

Now the officers knew the identity of
the killer suspect they sought, but where
were the bodies of his vactims hidden—
if, indeed, the bloodstains and bullet
holes correctly indicated that there were
murder victims in this mysterious case?

In Oklahoma City, the FBI filed a
complaint before U. S. Commissioner
Paul Showlater, charging Cook with the
only tangible crime thus far discovered:
the kidnaping of the motorist who had
escaped. Hardly had the ink dried when
the horror trail the trigger-happy gun-
man was forging was picked up again.

The badman had this time kidnaped
a deputy sheriff at Blythe, California.
The reports clicked in over the teletypes.

The deputy, Homer Waldrip, said he
had gone to a motel in’ Blythe after
hearing that Cook was being sought
He was acquainted with the suspect,
Who had once been a dishwasher in a
Blythe cafe where Waldrip’s wife also
worked. On Christmas Eve, however,
the Missouri convict had left California
for his home in Joplin.

“I thought I would just check to see
if he’d come back to Blythe,” Waldrip
declared. He had gone to the motel
about noon, January 4th. “I knocked
on the door and Cook opened up. He
shoved a gun in my stomach and
ordered me into my car.”

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The deputy went on to relate a har-
rowing tale of being driven over the
lonely desert until Cook finally halted
the car. Muttering something about a
“favor you did me,” the convict ordered
Waldrip to lie down, then bound him
and left the deputy on the roadside. It
was not until January 6th that Deputy
Waldrip. managed to free himself and
make his way back to Blythe. His car
had been abandoned five miles from
where he had been trussed.

“But here’s the most important thing,”
Waldrip said. “During the drive Cook
kept bragging. He said he had slain
a family of five, and had also killed
two other persons!”

The family of five could be none
other than the Mossers, the investigators
realized. They had hardly got over the
shock of this grim revelation when FBI
agents reported another gruesome dis-
covery. A car had been found 35 miles
south of Mexicali in lower California.
Inside was the slymped body of Robert
H. Dewey, 32, of Seattle, Washington.
He had been shot to death. Whatever
story Dewey might have told, had he
lived, could not now help the police;
but they were certain that his death
was connected to the murder spree of
the crazed highway gunman, William
Cook.

The greatest manhunt in the annals
of the southwest was now underway.
And a new story of sinister import now
came to the ears of Deputy Warren
Smith and Investigator Graves. The
owner of a small cafe near Winthrop,
Arkansas, reported that the death car—
the 1949 Chevrolet—had been at her
place at four-thirty P.M. New Year’s
Day.

“Mosser came into my,cafe with that
man”—she pointed at a photograph of
Cook. “He just stood there with one
hand in his coat pocket, and kept look-
ing out at the car. ‘here was a woman
and three children in the car.”

She described purchases made by the
two men. Police were satisfied that these
articles were similar to bloodstained
items found in Mosser’s car. The officers
were now convinced that somewhere in
the rugged hills between Tulsa and the
tiny community of Winthrop they would
uncover the bodies of the Mossers. Ac-
cording to Deputy Sheriff Waldrip, of
California, the gunman had _ boasted

that he had slain a family of five, and
added that he’d shot two other persons.
The dragnet for the killer was now

intensified even more, for a new report
indicated that two other persons might
have fallen victim to the rampaging
gunman. At El Centro, California, the
frightened relatives of two young pro-
spectors notified the authorities on Jan-
uary 8th that the pair had failed to
return home after a prospecting trip.
In Oklahoma, D. E. Bryce, special
agent of the FBI, filed more complaints
accusing Cook under the Lindbergh Act
of kidnaping and murdering the Moss-.
ers, despite the fact that bodies had
not yet. been recovered. Governors

Johnston Murray of Oklahoma and
Sid McMath of Arkansas proclaimed
January 14th as “Mosser Day,” calling
upon all citizens of both states to join
in a widespread search for the missing
family. But on that Sunday morning,
the 14th, a blizzard swept the path Cook

was believed to have taken with his ©

victims.

The following day the investigators, —

tense and worn. from numerous dis-
appointments, met to figure out a new

strategy. Then came the news that elec- =
trified the entire nation. William Cook -

had been captured!

He was under arrest, and being held ae
in a town some 600 miles below the ~
Police Chief Fran- %

California ‘border.
cisco Kraus Morales, of Tiajuana, and

another officer had spotted the killer —
and the two El Centro prospectors on _
town of San —

a street in the little

Rosalia.

Morales swiftly strode to the gun- ~

man and whisked a .32-caliber pistol
from his belt. The mad slayer surrend-
ered without a struggle.

Hardly had word of this capture been
received, when an ex-convict who had
served time with Cook in the Missouri
penitentiary called Chief of Detectives

Carl E. Nutt in Joplin and gave them 3

a tip. Cook, the ex-con said, had often
talked of an old mine that was only a
block from where the gunman had
spent his boyhood. Perhaps this was the

spot where he had secreted the bodies ~

of the Mosser family.

HIEF Nutt listened closely, then |

called Detective Walter Gamble
and two FBI agents. They obtained

powerful searchlights and raced a mile 4

west of downtown Joplin. Jumping from
their auto, they ran across a field to
the abandoned mine shaft the ex-con
had mentioned. As they neared the shaft
one agent suddenly stopped and stooped
over. When he straightened up, he held

a child’s shoe in his hand.

Chief Nutt hurried on ahead, found
that two boards covering the shaft had
been pried loose—recently.

“Bring the searchlights!”

The beams were turned down into
the black of the shaft and the sudden
illumination revealed the body of a
child, floating on the water below.

The officers summoned the local fire
department, and‘a winch was rushed to

the scene. A platform of wood was hur-
riedly built to be lowered by winch
cables into the shaft. A veteran rescue
worker, Henry Cook, was let down into
the cavern. He soon tugged at the cable
and was slowly raised to the surface.
As he came into sight he was holding
the corpse of 3-year-old Pamela Sue

Mosser. Again he descended, and re- ~

turned this time with the body of Gary
Carl Mosser, 5, then that of Ronald
Dean, 7. He next brought up the bodies
of the parents, Thelma and Carl Mosser.

Ronald and his mother and father
had ‘been bound with cord from the

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3 WEST'S CALE ORNIA REPORTER 1),8
COOPER, Richard Thomas, black, asphyxiated San Quentin (San Francisco) on July 8, 1960

"Strangler ‘ichard T, Cooper was taken yesterday from Death Row at San Qeantin to the
little holding cell by the gas chamber where he is scheduled to die at 10 o'clock in
thés morning, As he waited for death, groups opposed to capital punishment protested
the execution, Cooper, 37, is the confessed killer of two San Francisco women who
told authorities he would fight his way into the gas chamber, if necessary, in order
to die.

"He was calm, prison authorities said, and had a big appetite, For his final supper
he ordered: Avocado with lemon, oyster stew, prime ribs of beef, blood rare, with
chopped mushrooms, broiled lobster with lemon and butter, creamed corn, buttered
asparagus tips, hot rolls and coffee, Cooper said he wanted no dessert, but told
Assicuate Warden Dale Frady to have a glass of milk and pie on hand should he awake
during the night. Cooper said he did not want a minister with him either last night
or this morning when he walks the last few steps to the gas chamber,

"He will die for the murder of Elvira Hay, 7, in August, 1958, and Erlean Mosley,
37, in June, 1959, Both were killed in Cooper's dingy Skid Row hotel room at }93
Fourth Streeteees' San Francisco CHRONICLE, San Francisco, CA, 7-8-1960 (5/1<)).)

"Murderer Richard T, Cooper died in the San Quentin gas chamber yesterday, serene
about his own woes but outraged at the faltering San Francisco Giants, The 37<year-
old confessed strangler of two women, who vowed to fight his way to the chamber if
the State tried to nullify his death sentence, was pronounced dead at 10:12 a,m. He
walked without a word into his room of death, and eyed a cluster of 22 witnesses bhort.
ly before 10 o'clock, Cooper had asked to go without a prayer, but Chaplain Byron
Eshelman stayed with him anyway, Earlier, while pickets walked a night-long protest
against capital punishment outside the gates, Cooper sat in his death row cell,
talkipg about baseball, Associate Warden Dale Frady said Cooper was ‘very unhappy'
about the Giants and, at one point, blurted: 'I didn't think Bill Rigney knew very
much but I do,'t think Tom Sheehan knows anything at all,' After a big supper, Coo-
per wrote three letters to relatives and then sat until 3 a.m, alternately talking
with prison officials and listening to a classical and semi-classical music programe
He awoke at 6:55 a.m. and ate a hefty breakfast, The last thing he said to prison
officials in his cell before he was led to the chamber was: 'If I knew then what I
know now, my life would have been a lot @ifferent,' He was convicted of strangling
Elvira Hay, 4.7, in August, 1958, and Erlean Mosley, 37, in June, 1959, Both murders
occurred in his Skid Row hotel room at 93 Fourth Street,"

CHRONICLE, San Francisco, California, July 9, 1960 (4:h).

See: DEATH ROW CHAPLAIN by Byron Eshelmans Englewood-Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall,
19623 pp 15-25 (Signet pocketbook edition, June, 1972.)

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52

children’s cowboy hats. Each member
of the family had been shot at least
once. This was more horrible than even
the war-time atrocities!

In his jail cell in San Diego, Cali-
fornia,.the badman was sullen when he
heard that the bodies of his victims had
been retrieved. On January 19th, he
suddenly confessed to FBI agents the
story of the murder of the Mossers, the
most heinous ever written in the crime
annals of the United States. “On De-
cember 20th, I held up and robbed a
motorist,’ Cook said. “I took his car,
but then I got to thinking the police
would be looking for that car, so I
abandoned it. Later that afternoon I
stopped another car on the highway. It

was the Mosser family. I pointed a gun
at them and climbed in. We drove on
to Oklahoma’City and circled around
for about an hour, maybe a little longer.
Then we headed west on Highway 66
to Wichita Falls, Texas.

“We went into a grocery store and
Mosser jumped me. We broke a win-
dow in the scuffle. Mosser screamed to
the grocer that he was being kidnaped
and his family would be killed. I got
control, and got Mosser back in the car.
We drove southwest.

“I told Mosser to drive to Carlsbad.
Mosser jumped me again at Carlsbad
and tried to escape. I told him ‘then if
it happened again I would kill them all.
In El Paso, I saw a police car and told
Mosser to turn around and drive to
Houston. We drove through Houston
and on to Winthrop, Arkansas. Then
we headed for Joplin. Near Joplin, Mrs.
Mosser got hysterial. The kids got

scared and began screaming. I tied all
of them up, except. Mosser. He was
driving. At the outskirts of Joplin, a
police car drove by and looked at us. I
got a little nervous but the cops drove
away. Mrs. Mosser got hysterial again,
and Mosser- tried to stop the car.

“TI shot them. I shot them all, and I
drove the car to an old abandoned mine
in Joplin. I left the bodies in the shaft.
I got back in the car and drove to Tulsa,
Oklahoma, but the car got stuck in the
mud. So I left it and started back to
Blythe. I hitchhiked part of the way,
came the rest by bus. In Blythe I ran
into Waldrip. I pulled a gun and took
him with me. Out in the desert I tied
him up in a blanket and left him. I took
his money, his gun, and the sheriff’s
car,

“It was near Ripley in the Laguna
Palo Verde area that I used the red
light on the sheriff’s car to stop another
auto. That was Dewey. I made him
drive toward Yuma. He was pretty
nervous and dropped his cigarette. When
he reached to pick it up, I shot him in

‘the side. I thought he was reaching for

a gun.’ He grabbed me and we struggled
around in the car. He got the door
open and was falling out when I shot
him again. I left him out’ there in the
desert and. headed for Mexico. I cross-

ed the border at Mexicali and drove to

aes A Sec ge ae

San Felipe. There wasn’t much there, |
so I drove about 35 miles where I had
trouble with the car. At daybreak, a
couple of prospectors stopped by and
asked if I needed any help.

“I stuck them up and made them
drive me along the Mexican side of -
the border from Mexicali to Tiajuana.
In a place called Alaska, I told the ~
prospectors to bury the license plates

which I had taken from Dewey’s car. -

Then we drove to Tiajuana and down
the coast to Ensenada. Below Ensenada -
we turned off toward San Rosalia.”.

It was at San Rosalia that Cook met 3

Chief Mordles, and his downfall.

He was arraigned in San Diego on
federal counts, Both Oklahoma and
California wanted him, but the govern-
ment charges took priority. Cook was
returned to Oklahoma City where the
federal grand jury indicted him under the
Lindbergh Law in the Mosser family
case.

A death penalty was to be sought, but
Cook’s attorney advised him to change
his plea to guilty, and after a sanity
hearing which showed the -youth to be
legally sane, U.S. District Judge Stephen
Chandler sentenced Cook to 60 years

on each of the five kidnap counts,

The multiple murderer was taken to
Alcatraz, but the justice department re-
leased him to California for further
prosecution.

Cook was brought to El Centro in
November to face trial for the murder
of Robert Hilton Dewey. There was no
“not guilty” plea and Cook’s sanity re-
mained the only issue. After hearing all
of the testimony of witnesses and psy-
chiatrists, a jury found William Cook
sane and fully responsible for his crime,
Superior Judge Luray J. Mouser fixed
his guilt at first degree murder, with no
extenuating circumstances. The death
sentence was pronounced on November
28th, 1951. The state supreme court
upheld the conviction and Cook paid
for his crimes in the gas chamber at

San Quentin on December 12th, 1952.%

SNATCH-KILLERS

(Continued from page 27)

man, named Harold Reece, came to the
FBI man’s attention. Vetterli was struck
by the similarity of the Reece kidnap-
ing to that of Arthur Fried... Reece,
the son of wealthy parents, had been
kidnaped and returned unharmed when
the ransom had been paid. The Reeces
had dealt secretly with the kidnapers
without notifying the police. :
‘Vetterli went to Brooklyn and found
that young Reece was quite willing to
talk about his adventure. Reece said
that on the Saturday night of July 23rd
he left a local movie theatre, got into
his car and drove off. He stopped for
a-red light and two men leaped on the.
running board of his convertible. One
pressed a gun against his head. Another
man ran up and they all got into the
car. as eas the light turned green the

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Decoyediby: promises of rich li

“HAD a feeling it would ring, and it did. It rang twice,
sharply, peremptorily, just as I was getting into my coat,

© BY. SHERIFF! DON. COX: OF’ SACRAMENTO, CAL.
reas ER SUR UR pia Se ag tolditos: ar teas
~ +)» JULIUS: IS SANDERS ~

"ready to call it a day. I picked up the telephone and. 2

looked at the clock. It was a few minutes past 5 p.m.”
“Sheriff Cox speaking. Yes ?” pees Wretes. et
“Sheriff, this is Angelo Pellegrini. I live over on Bell Street-—1113
I was out hunting rabbits this afternoon, about a mile and a half down
from the H Street Bridge and I found... 1 came across it caught ni
a limb out in the water. It—” ae chi as

- “Came across what ??) 2. ew

. “A body. No head, no legs, It’s still down there.”

‘Where are you now, Pellegrini?” oe
“Home, sir, I ran home to telephone you.”

It was a young voice, the voice of a teen-ager. = ee
~ ("Look now, Pellegrini. Stay where you are. A couple of deputies
will be out there in a few minutes. You take them to that spot.” ©

. hung up, hurried to the radio room and told the dispatcher to ru
two men to the Pellegrini place. He picked up the car of Deputies George
Gerbi and Charles Hanimitt, gave them the orders, and‘as they gave
their “ten-four” okay signal, I went into the adjoining office of Under-
- sheriff Harry Knoll. SG AUS es OS hae an Peas
_ Knoll isa quiet, elderly man, whose soft, friendly speech is reminis-
cent of Jean Hersholt’s Dr, Christian, ©5200 "0 eee ce
~ “Harry, I’ve got Gerbi and Hammitt checking a report on a torso.
in the American River, They'll be calling back in a little while. If
there’s anything, I want you to go out on it.” Wes: a :
Knoll’s eyes went to the calendar, then levelled back to me, I knew

‘what he was thinking. EOE os Se A ieee
» “Could be, Harry. We'll wait’n see.” iat ;
_ “Just six months ago yesterday,” he said, “and still nothing.”
_. Twenty ‘minutes later, that day of December 22, 1948,. the two:
_deputies radioed in, and Knoll and Deputies John McVeigh, the depart- ~
ment’s identification technician, and George Munizich hurried out to
the American River. Mem estilo: toe Bo igen tats

_ At first glance it looked like the remains of an animal caught on a cot-
tonwood branch extending into the murky water. But another look
quickly told the truth. It was the body of a woman without a head, |
without legs. hoe SS CS cBhikis relate Sah

Ms “You're nothing but an old man,” she cris d,
Rot realizing they would be her last words.

&

r

ae |

/

ving,. ti

grim fate at the hands of a


alll

ia”

wl

McVeigh shot pictures from mul-
tiple angles before they pulled the body
to shore.

They all saw the bracelet at the
same time, a gold-like piece of costume
jewelry which clung to the right wrist.
That trinket, with its rows of green
and white stones, and the scarlet paint
on the fingernails somehow made the
corpse seem even more hideous, 4

The coroner’s deputies, summoned
by radio, soon arrived and took the
body to the county morgue.

Dr. Arthur Wallace got busy on the
autopsy and reported the next day that

‘the body had been in the water not

more than five to eight days. There
were no signs of internal injuries,
which ruled out any suspicion of abor-
tion, and no indications of poisoning.

We put the $64 question to the doc-
tor. Was there any definite similarity
in the mutilation of this body to the
torso we had found the previous June
28 in the Sacramento River under
Steamboat Slough Bridge?

The answer came without hesita-
tion. The doctor was sure the two
murders were committed by the same
person. In each case, he pointed out,
the head was severed close to the body
and the hacking of the legs was crudely
done. The only difference was that the
first torso, besides being deprived of
head and legs, also had been sheared
of its arms.

This first torso, wrapped in two
dark gray blankets and tied with elec-

tric wire cord, was found by a fish-
erman. An all points bulletin for
information from missing persons
bureaus failed to elicit a single clue as
to the victim’s identity.

The sawed, hacked left leg of this
victim was found in the river three
or four weeks later, but the head and
arms and the right leg still were miss-
ing. And though we thought we had
something of a clue in the blanket and
the two by three-inch piece of faded
blue dress material we found with our
No. | torso, nothing came of it in the
six months that followed.

The bracelet in the new case raised
our hopes. And so did the fingerprints,
which of course were lacking in the
first torso slaying. Despite the water-
soaked condition of the second corpse,
McVeigh was able to get impressions
clear enough for our purposes,

Under McVeigh’s microscope and
tracings of whorls, arches and loops
there evolved the next best thing to a-
name—a classification number. Our
Jane Doe, minus head, legs, and name,
was Miss7 S 1 U 6

M 1 U-r.

While we waited, deputies got busy
on the bracelet angle. They checked
department stores, jewelry storés, and

Sheriff-author Cox, at right, examines
the decapitating ax for bloodstains.
Co-author Sanders (left) and Deputy
McVeigh (center) question killer.


even dime stores and novelty shops.
The score remained zero. Christmas
and New Year’s arrived and departed,
without any real progress in the case.

I decided to put the bracelet up to
the public. I called in the local police
reporters, gave them pictures of the
piece of costume jewelry, and candidly
- told them I was counting on publicity
to do what legwork failed to do.

A lot more than running down the
piece of jewelry had us stymied. The
roundup of known and suspected sex
offenders, dope addicts and panderers
had developed the same frustrating
nothing.

And the same thing went for the
assignments Munizich and McVeigh
pulled down. For several days, cold,
foggy ones which don’t make for
cheerful feelings, they trekked for
miles along the banks of the American
and Sacramento Rivers looking for
anything—anything at all—that might
serve as a wedge, no matter how slight,
in the door which was shut so tight
against us. But all Munizich. and Mc-
Veigh came back with were cold feet.
and chilled bones.

Knoll, McVeigh and I got together
to air our ideas and theories.

_ As there was no sign of pregnancy
in either case, we considered it a safe
bet to pass up any idea of an aboriion
mill operating in Sacramento. We all
seemed to favor the idea of a frustrated
sex maniac or a Bluebeard, who liked
his victims small and comparatively
young. ;

The first torso, as determined by
the autopsy surgeons, was that of a
woman of about 25, slightly over five
feet tall and weighing about 125
pounds. The second ‘was between 18
and 22 years of age, about 5 feet 2
inches, 120 pounds, with black hair
and small hands.

Knoll shook his head. “It doesn’t
look so hot, Sheriff.”

McVeigh simply looked glum. I
didn’t feel very encouraged myself, but
I said, ““There’ll be a break.”

The next day the picture of the
bracelet appeared in the papers. And
in the Sacramento Bee, not only was
the trinket conspicuously played up,
‘but the front page contained a staff
artist’s conception of the second vic-
tim, with body measurements.

Publicity proved to be the catalytic
agent to precipitate the break I had
predicted.

A couple days after the picture and
sketch appeared, a worried looking
thin faced man came into the office and
said he wanted to identify the body of
the second torso.

He gave his name as George Corbin
and said he was from Stockton—
about fifty miles south of this capital
city.

“I’m pretty sure it’s my daughter,
Linda,” he said. “She’s been missing
since December 18—four days before
this ... this torso was found.”

“We'll be glad to take you to the
morgue so you can view the body, of
course,” I told him. “But just what
makes you feel so sure it is your
daughter ?” :

“The bracelet. That bracelet in the
paper is identical to one my daughter
had.” .

We took Corbin to the morgue and -

let him see the torso. He turned, wilted
and confused. “I don’t know . .°. I
don’t know,” he said. -

We didn’t know either, but we were
dubious. Corbin had seemed pretty
sure in the beginning. He’d described
his daughter’s weight as about 150
and said there was a vaccination mark
on her right arm. We doubted if the
murder victim had weighed 125 at the
very most. :

As we talked further with Corbin,
we became more and more certain that
the torso in the morgue was not that
of his daughter. We told him so,
bluntly, but he shook his head and bit
down on his lip. “But you’re not post-
tive it’s not Linda. I hope to goodness
you're right. But I—I got to be sure.”

“Of course,” I said softly. “But in
order to be positive about something
you have to have positive proof. So
far you’ve given us very little to work
with. The similarity in a bracelet isn’t
too certain, Mr. Corbin. I’m sure there
are a great number of similar jewelry
articles on sale all over.”

He SAT a moment, silent, looking
fixedly at the edge of my desk.
Then he raised his head slightly.
“Sheriff, I left something out. I
should’ve told you right away.”

“What ?”

“Well, since you need something
more positive to check on, Linda is—
was in the Sonoma State Hospital, but
she escaped a few weeks ago.”

“You should’ve said that before,
Corbin. We’ll pick it up from there,
then. -The hospital has prints and
anatomical information. I think we
can settle the question now in a very
little time. We'll let you know, either
way.”

Corbin left and we immediately got
busy contacting state hospital officials

This bracelet seemed like a clue to the
identity of the torso, but a worried
housewife finally provided the vital
lead that identified the girl at right.

to get a check on their records. They
called back about an ‘hour later. The
report we got was detailed, and even
before it was all given us we became
absolutely certain that Mr. Corbin’s
daughter was not the torso victim.
The fingerprints didn’t match.
“Well, that’s that,” I said to Knoll.
“Have one of the boys phone or wire
Corbin the results.”
“Tomorrow, maybe,

9?

Knoll mur-

mured. “Always another day.”
The next day brought letters and
telegrams from Indiana, Ohio, upstate

[Continued on page 78]


EI <n

traveled through several states, working
in nightclubs.

Corrales was brought to trial in March.
The defense offered no evidence, but
maintained that the defendant had killed
in the heat of passion, without premedita-
tion, and was therefore not guilty of first-
degree murder.

But Deputy District Attorney John
Quincy Brown demanded the death

penalty, asserting that Corrales was ‘‘an-
other Bluebeard,’’ whose moral con-
cepts were those of a savage.

‘*He murdered those girls and then cut
up their bodies,’’ Brown said, ‘‘with as
little concern as you or I would have in
decapitating a chicken:”’

The jury agreed with the prosecutor,
for on March 16th it found the defendant
guilty of murder in the first degree, with-

out recommendation, on each of the
counts.

Four days later, Superior Judge
Raymond T. Coughlin sentenced the tor-
so murderer to die in the gas chamber at
San Quentin Prison.

Victoriano Corrales was legally ex-
ecuted on February 24th. *

(Editor’s note: The names Sally Ellis and Rex
Brennan are fictitious.)

Sex-Killer In Ladies’ Clothing

(continued from page 9)

filed a new complaint against Charles
Rector: capital murder.

But the investigation was ‘far from
over. In talking with witnesses, detec-

- tives learned there was a strong possibili-

ty more than one person was involved in
the abduction-rape-killing.

A University of Texas student recalled
having seen three men outside Davis’
apartment the night she disappeared. He

told officers he assumed the three men

were friends of Davis’.

Another complex resident told investi-
gators she had seen a man who looked
like Rector near the apartment’s laundry
room just after 11 p.m. the night of the
abduction. .

‘*He trotted through and asked me on
his way if I had seen two other black
dudes around there,’’ the woman later
related. ‘‘I said ‘no’ and he kept on run-
ning.”’

Adding to the possibility that more
than one person was involved in the
crime, neighbors told police of having
heard at least two men talking outside
Davis’ apartment that night. One of the
men had mentioned ‘*204,’’ which was
the young woman’s apartment number.

Detectives concentrated their inves-
tigation on the halfway house where
Rector had lived. Soon they came up
with the names of two other halfway
house residents who might have been
with Rector the night Davis was slain.

On Tuesday, Oct. 20, nearly three
days since Davis’ death, a robbery war-
rant was issued for Howard Simon, 21,
who also had been a resident of the half-
way house. Like Rector, Simon was a
recent parolee.

Police said they were looking for a
third man, too, though no warrant had

‘been issued for him.

Despite the new charge, and the mur-

der complaint against Rector, investiga-

tors still had not been able to piece
together the full story of what happened
to Davis that Saturday night.

**At this point, we don’t know whether
she was followed,’ homicide Lt. Robert

Wisian told a reporter. ‘‘The motive

seems to be burglary, but why they took
her and killed her, we don’t know.”’

however, without having to make a
second application, Texas Gov. Bill Cle-
ments signed an order granting Simona
conditional parole. One of the conditions
was that he report to the halfway house
where he had been staying.

The robbery warrant against Simon | But since the robbery complaint had

was not directly connected to the Davis -

case, though police acknowledged he
Was a suspect. Simon’s charge stemmed
from the holdup of an individual about 2
a.m., Oct. 11, six days before Davis’
disappearance. The victim in that rob-
bery, which occurred along a UT-area
street, had identified both Simon and
Rector as the perpetrators, though no
charge was filed against Rector because
of the more serious complaints already
pending against him.

As detectives sought Simon, they
learned more and more about him. He
was convicted of four burglaries in Dal-
las County in 1980, and had assessed a
six-year prison sentence. But he served
less than 17 months before being released
under a new parole program designed to
reduce overcrowding in the state prison.

Simon had been denied parole in June,
1981, when he first applied. On July 29,

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been filed, Simon had disappeared.

The same day the complaint against
him was filed, the judge who had set
Rector’s bail on the initial burglary
charge denied a request by the county
district attorney’s office that the suspect
be ordered to undergo a psychiatric ex-
amination. In his ruling, Judge Russell
said there was no evidence to support the
need for such testing.

**This is the sort of crime for which the

(continued on next page)

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59


Close-up of “Killer” Cook's hand bearing tattoo, “Hard Luck.” Why did this man run amuck and murder six persons?
The attendant had had trouble with holdups, and the whole

tool, and as the car bounced over rough roads, he pried at

the door to the trunk compartment. thing looked like a rather crude attempt to get into his place
‘An hour later he had it opened; he peered out cautiously. to rob him. He grabbed his shotgun and ran the two men
The car was going more than 60 miles an hour, and Archer out.

didn’t want to risk jumping. However, he didn’t have to wait At five the next morning the same men entered a restau-
long for his chance. Cook slowed the car down almost to a rant 50 miles northeast of Wichita Falls. The waitress no-
stop. Archer was out of the trunk compartment, racing for ticed that the older man seemed afraid of the youth behind
some woods near the road. him. She leaned over the counter.and whispered, “Where

Cook saw him, jumped out of the car and yelled, “Stop, or are you from?” Oe
Y'll shoot.” ‘ “Decatur, Ilinois,” was the older man’s whispered answer. ©
Archer didn’t stop, and Cook didn’t pull the trigger of the He started to say something else, but the youth gave him
revolver. He walked back to the car, got in and drove away. a quick look, and the man stopped whispering.

The next trace of Cook turned up a few miles beyond ;
Luther. Archer’s car had developed a knock, caused by a

burned-out rod, and Cook was standing beside it, trying to
thumb a ride from passing cars. Kermit Mackey, a farmer and seldom-use
living nearby, saw him hail a blue, 1949 Chevrolet sedan, blue, two-door sedan parked back in the trees,

with a man and a woman in the front seat and three children his car and walked to the Chevrolet.
in the back. It was empty, but Smith saw bloodstains on the front and

Early on the morning of January 2, 1951, the blue Chevro- back seats. Three exploded 38-caliber shells were on the
let drove up to a filling station outside of Wichita Falls, rear seat. A woman’s handkerchief stained with blood was
let stop outside and on the floor in the f

Texas. The proprictor saw the Chevro ront of the car.- In the rear a small boy’s
e early morn- hat lay on the floor,

Fags on the morning of January 3, Osage Deputy War-
ren Smith was driving along the Apache road, an isolated

d thoroughfare outside of Tulsa. He saw a
so he stopped

thought that these men were merely some mor partly torn. A child’s book was near it,

ing customers. and it, too, was covered with blood.

Two men entered the filling st Smith reported his find to the Tulsa police department,

his thirties, and the other, younger, and when the car was towed into Tulsa there was little doubt
in anybody’s mind that a number of persons had been mur-

jacket and gray trousers.
-The older man came into the station first, obviously ex- dered in it~ It didn’t take long to check on the Illinois li-
cense and to learn that the car was owned by Carl Mosser

cited and frightened. He said to the proprictor, “This man is
-going to kill me and take my wife.” of Atwood, IHlinois.

ation. One was a man in
was wearing a leather

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Cook


By JAMES TATE

HE YOUNG MAN was small, almost frail of build, not
many inches over five feet tall. His head and face
seemed too large for his body, and this, together with

the deformity in his right cye, which caused the eye lid wil
to droop badly, gave him an unpleasant look. He wore an tan
. old leather jacket and gray trouscrs, his heavy head of black an
curly hair was bare. hin
| It was ten o’clock in the morning of December 30, 1950, esc
and the youth was at the filling station on the outskirts of onl
Lubbock, ‘Fexas. His name was William Cook, which on that cal
date didn’t mean much to anybody outside of a few prison diat
officials, some residents of Joplin, Missouri, and seven brothers 7 N
and sisters and their families. “The background of William whi
Cook, who within a few weeks was to become famous as a tun
criminal, is a familiar story of delinquency in our communi- mit
ties. the
He had been born 21 years before in Van Buren, Arkansas, |
_ the youngest member of a large family. His mother dicd ~Mad-dog killer Bill Cook, captured in Lower California, is ans
when he was six months old, and his father, William Cook. pictured above, surrounded by Mexican police officers. Vt
Sr., Was never quite able to make cnough to feed all the hun tim:
gry mouths. One by one the other children were adopted by ate
foster parents, but nobody seemed to want Bill. had
this

His father moved to Joplin, and Bill went along. At Tl he i
School at Boonville for de * asa

was sent to the Missouri Praming
linquency, and from that date until he was 21 most of his
hard

| time had been spent behind bars. At the Boonville Training First complete story of “Billy oa

School, Superintendent Sweeney found him a peculiar boy,

( anxious to be friendly. However, his eye defect seemed to é ”
the Killer” — modern bad man. man

set him apart.

“16

: HA B@va RATERS DETECT? VE
APR. (75 1


alifornia, is
-e officers.

silly
man.

Salesman Robert Dewey gave Cook a ride, was murdered.

At the end of the year he was released from Boonville, but
within a few months he was back, after trying to hold up a
taxi driver. He was only 12, a thin boy, with a stunted body
and a head that was already growing too big for the rest of
him. In 1946 he and seven other boys pulled a daring daylight
escape trom the training school. This spell of freedom lasted
only a few months. He went back to Joplin, tried to steal a
car and was picked up; this time he was sent to the Interme-
diate Reformatory at Algoa for five years.

Six out of his 17 years had been spent in prisons, the years
when he was a growing boy and should have known all the
fun. excitement and security of boyhood. He became un-
munaveable at the Algoa Reformatory and had to be sent to
the State penitentiary to serve the remainder of his five years.

However, at the penitentiary he proved a model prisoner,
and on June 16, 1950, he walked out of the great iron gates
a free man. Up to this point Cook had been only a small-
time crook, limiting his efforts to a crude attempt to hold up
a taxi driver and trying to steal an automobile, all of which
had cost him 10 years in prison. He didn’t return to Joplin
this ime, but went to Blythe, California, where he got a job
as a dishwasher in a restaurant. ~

For six months he showed no interest in crime. He worked
hard at his job and tried to adjust himself to life outside
prison walls, which was a litte strange and new to him. But
as Christmas approached he grew restless. He didn’t have
many friends in Blythe.

And standing at the filling station on that morning of De-
cember 30, he was on his way back to Joplin. He had less
than two dollars in his pockets, a few Mexican coins and a
.38-caliber revolver. The revolver had been purchased be-
fore he had left Blythe to hitch his way to Joplin.

HERE was a dreary loneliness to the Nat prairie land that

stretched away from the filling station and lost itself on
the rimsof the horizon. Cook's right hand was in his coat
pocket, and the touch of the cold steel of the revolver must
have sent an added chill through the tips of his fingers.

Lee B. Archer, a mechanic from ‘Vahoka, drove up to the
filling station. Cook walked over to him as the attendant
was filling the gas tank.

“What about a ride?” Cook asked. “I'm trying to get to
Joplin.” :

Archer was a friendly man. He answered, “Sure, lad, get
in. I'm going into Oklahoma.”

Cook got in the front, scat, sat stiflly. When they drove
away from the filling station, Archer looked at his companion,
at the small body and the large head and the drooping eyelid.
He felt a wave of pity for the youth and asked, “Hungry?”

“No, ’'m not hungry.” Cook continued to look. straight
ahead.

Avcher’s other attempts at conversation met with little suc-
cess. It wasn't until they were nearing Oklahoma City that
Cook opened up. Archer hadn't asked him any questions,
but suddenly Cook, still staring ahead, blurted, “All right, Pil
give it to you. I've served time. Over half my life in prisons.
I'm an ex-con. Nobody wants an ex-con around. Nobody
ever wanted me around.”

“Don’t feel that way,” Archer answered. “You're young,
and you can get on the straight track and stay there.”

“Em a punk,” Cook’s voice was a snarl. “That’s what
they told me in stir. 1 never pulled any real jobs. 1 didn’t
want to. I wanted to be a good boy. I always wanted that,
but they wouldn’t let me. Maybe I can show them I ain’t a
punk.” .

Cook rambled on in his conversation. He told how he had
stopped at El Paso and crossed the border into Juarez and
had some fun with pirls. He showed Archer some Mexican
coins to prove this part of bis story. ‘Then he went into a
long discussion about how he had served in’ the Army.
Archer listened intently as Cook talked, ‘

They were soon in Oklahoma City. ‘There was a traffic
jam, and Archer had trouble getting out of it. He looked at
Cook, who was shaking like a leat, his lower lip quivering.

“Scared, kid?” Archer asked. “What's the trouble?”

Cook got control of himself, muttered something under his
breath.

They drove through Oklahoma City in silence. Then
Archer felt the prodding point of a gun in his side. He had
had that experience once before with a hitchhiker, and he
didn’t need to look to know that Cook was sticking the rea!
gun in his ribs.

“Look,” Archer cajoled, “you oughtn’t to act. this way.
If you need money, I'll give you what you want. You don’t
need to use a gun on me and get yourself in more trouble.”

“Get out of the car,’ Cook snapped. ;

Archer obeyed. Cook marched him to the back of the car,
made him open the trunk compartment, ‘take the spare tire
out and put it in the back seat.

Then Cook said, “Get in that trunk, FH you don’t give me
trouble, you'll be all right.”

When Archer was in the trunk compartment, Cook
Slammed the doot and locked i. Phen he got in the car,
drove through the town of Luther, Oklahoma, and headed
northeast toward Joplin.

In the trunk compartment Archer had found a tire rim

17


rsons?

whole
» place
o men

restau-
ess No-
behind
“Where

answer. ©
ave him

ity War-
| isolated
e saw a
- stopped

ront and —

- on the
lood was
nall boy’s
5s near it,

partment,
itle doubt
veen mur-
linois li-
url Mosser

Additional information about the Mosser family came over
the wires. Carl Mosser, 33, his wife, Thelma, 29, their chil-

dren Ronald, 7, Gary, 5, and Pamela Sue, 2, were on a trip §

to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to visit Licutenant Chris, twin
brother of Carl Mosser. Sid Wilson, of the Oklahoma Crime
Bureau, and his men started a back check on filling stations

and found that the Mosser family had passed through’Tulsa 24

four days before. .

Their route took them to Luther, Oklahoma, where Cook
had abandoned Archer’s car. Archer had reported his kid-
naping by Cook, and when his car was examined a duffle
_bag with Cook’s name and address on it was found in the
car, as well as laundry with Cook’s initials.

Pictures of Cook were ‘obtained from the’ State peniten-
tiary, and Archer quickly identified him as the youth who had
stuck the gun in his ribs,

In Tulsa Sid Wilson’s men learned that a man answering |

Cook’s description had tried to get help to get the blue Chew
rolet out of a ditch: So, 48 hours after the discovery of the
bloodstained Mosser car, teletypes in all parts of the country
were sending out the description of Cook, asking that offi-
cials ‘in all cities and states be on the lookout for him.
The most baffling aspect of the Mosser case was where the
bodies had been hidden. In that section of Oklahoma the

country is rolling hills and mountains, and finding bodies.

was something like looking for the needle in the haystack.

And ,while the search for Cook and for the bodies was on,

full blast, Cook was riding across the Raton pass in a sales-
man’s car. He was a subdued and frightened youth. The gun
was in his pocket, but his fingers weren’t touching it any-
more. His face was pale, and his lower lip kept quivering.

Three days ‘later he was in Blythe, California. He had
heard very little about the case, no more than a few broad-

casts in the cars in which he had gotten rides. He knew the ©

Mosser car had been found, but there was no mention of the
slayer. He went to the restaurant where he had worked,
hoping to get a few dollars.

It was when he stepped into the restaurant that he heard
the radio blasting out his description and the request that he
be arrested on sight. He wheeled around, started out of the
restaurant; but when he got to the door he saw the bulky
form of Deputy Sheriff Homer Waldrip. The gun came out
of Cook's pocket, and he jabbed it into the stomach of the
deputy before Waldrip realized that he was looking at Cook.

“Okay,” Cook snarled,.. “Back out to your car, and don’t
try anything foolish. I’ve killed seven people back in Okla-
homa and killing another won’t make it much worse.’

Deputy Waldrip backed to his car, his hands over his head.
Cook pushed him in and then got behind the steering wheel.
The car was gone before anybody in or around the restaurant
knew what was happening.

Cook turned -off the highway toward the desert not far

from Blythe. He drove ‘with his left hand, his right holding

the gun on the helpless deputy. :

“I killed that family back in Oklahoma,” Cook boasted to
Waldrip. “I didn’t like’ to hear the kids yelling. Maybe I
wouldn’t have killed them if they hadn’t started screaming all
at once when I got near Joplin. But they did, and I let them
have it. I dragged their bodies through the snow, and no-

" body will ever find them.”

The car was speeding across the desert enn: Fifteen
minutes later Cook stopped the car, said to Waldrip, “Get out
of the car and lie down on your’ face.”

Waldrip got out of the car and lay down, expecting any
minute to feel the twinge as a bullet entered his body. Cook
was standing over him, but no gun roared,

Cook said, “Your wife worked as a waitress at the restau-

Firemen and volunteer workers are shown ralsing one of
five bodies of Mosser family — murdered by Cook — from
an old abandoned mine shaft in the state of Missouri.

rant in Blythe when I was. tlie dishwasher. She was kind to
me, and because of her I’m not killing you. I'll tie you up,
and if you can get free, that’s your good luck.”

Cook got some rope out of the deputy’s car and tied him
up leaving him face down. Then he drove away.

Twenty miles from where he had left Waldrip, Cook ‘aban-
doned the car and walked toa highway going through the
desert,

He waited fifteen minutes before a car came along. He
thumbed it, but it didn’t stop. Ten minutes later another
car appeared. Cook got out in the middle of the road, wav-
ing his arms frantically. The driver, Robert Dewey,’ of

’ Seattle, Washington, brought his car to a skidding stop.

Cook ran to the door, yanked it open and jumped in.

Dewey asked, “What’s the idea?”

He didn’t finish the sentence, because he was looking at
the gun in Cook’s hand.

“Just keep on driving,” Cook ordered. “You're taking
me across the border.”

Dewey was a serviceman and not easily frightened. “When
a man is looking into the barrel of a gun,” he said, “he does
what he's told. Okay, I'll start driving.”

After driving ten miles, they. (Continued on page 30)

PAs AEE eRe

poe ohit 2s

yee

heen a

3 i ys 2
i

MEXICO

COOK’S MURDER TOUR is shown numerically, be;
to which he returned. The broken line: Mossers” route un

s

THE 72-HOUR NIGHTMARE FD

cena Carl Mosser and his family had left their Ili-

oe

THE FAMILY i

n the car was that of Carl Mosser, ia hh few d fter Christmas to visit

33, a farmer from Atwood, IIl., driving south with ae igeag net ays “N sasha Whe:
his wife Thelma, 29, and:their three small children. friends an S brother in {New Mexico. en
Cook forced his way into their crowded car three

days of nightmare began. He did not dare set
them free, could not bring himself to kill them.
They drove back and forth through four states,
(points 5 through 12 on map above), stopping
occasionally for gas or food. Once, at the filling-
station grocery of E. O. Cornwall in Wichita
Falls, Cook forced Mosser into the store with
him and Mosser got a chance to jump his cap-
tor. “Help me!” he cried, pinning Cook’s arms.
*He’s going to kill me and take my wife!” But
the elderly grocer mistook this for a mere scuf- bi
fle, seized his gun and forced both men out of the 2. eee ce ceacto bate eee
-kidnaper. Nx
and some re:
of 10 other - pi cy
Repeated efi -
ments Were °
. thar when ne
ened to thro |
A search of :
Mossers wet |
from the sha’ ;
Ronald, 7 -” (
“alma an’‘| ;
s was their li!
ter and mi-
predictable
since thum

TEXAS RANGE!

THEIR HOME vas this farmhouse where Mosser,
respected as a hard-working, friendly man, raised

corn and oats on 160 acres, was saving a little money.

UNALERT GROCER CORNWALL EXHIBITS HIS .44

_ store. Two nights later Cook reached adecision.
In a savagely symbolic and probably uncon-
scious gesture of revenge on the family life he
himself had never had,‘he drove the Mossers
toward his former home town of Joplin. When
the children began to cry and Mrs. Mosser grew
hysterical he tied and gagged them. Mosser,
driving hurriedly, stopped the car and Cook de-
liberately began shooting one after the other.
He threw the bodies down a mine shaft within
the Joplin city limits. Two days after the rid-
dled, bloody car, still containing the children’s
Christmas-given Hopalong Cassidy hats, was
found near Tulsa. Governors asked all citizens
to search their property foot by foot for clues
to the missing family; Mosser’s twin (opposite
page) got an Army leave so he could use his re-
semblance to his brother to jog the memories
of those who might have seen him. Through a
patchwork of reports Cook was identified as the

f : “

ark
dan, which was ideal from Cook’s criminal viewpoint
since it is widely used make and of unobtrusive color.

SOV ees & nae

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a 18 5 Ys : : vid,


' BAND-AID* Spot Dressing is a circle. sa i
it fits into a baby's palm! Flesh-colayeé +
the others, Spot Dressing is a new kind
Protection for tiny injuries on face, Pt es
shoulder, knuckle. Seals all around, cathy.

shows! .

' together in new, flat box

s MADE BY

pote ged armen patomtsca Sb 1c BE ps

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pat JEFFERSON CI

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Manus.

1 Cork watheoked i

He was born in penury, with a deformed right eye-

lid which, even after a charity operation, would
make him sleep all his life with one eye open. He
began to hate people early. After his mother died,
his father abandoned him and his seven brothers
and sisters in a mine cave near Joplin, Mo., their
home. When child-welfare authorities put them out
for adoption, no one wanted the resentful, squint-

.. eyed 5-year-old. A woman agreed to board him at
"county expense; later he said that on two Christ-
= ict it go back rather than pay the instalments. When
Su.sequent guardians found him too uncontrollable
to house, he morose’y chose to go toa reformatory
where he had his life motto tattooed on his fingere

= (above) Lateran older sister took himinto her home.
pigs He wee and brimmins with Wittearnn-. Waesthed

tame

inases she bought him the bicycle he wanted, then —

reformatory, escaped, tried to steal a car and got an-
other five years. He proved so unruly a prisoner that
he was graduated to the state penitentiary. There

they booked him: William E. Cook Jr., 18 years old,

5 feet 412 inches tall, brown hair, intelligence quo-
tient: 91 (just a little below average).

His sentence finally served, he looked up his fa-
ther, told him, “I’mgonnalive by thegunandroam.”
He went to Blythe, Calif., made a few dollars sling-
ing hash, then started to roam, 23 years old and sul-
lenly sure the world owed him plenty. In Lubbock,
Texas he hitchhiked a ride from a mechanic bound

_for Oktahoma, the:: -ahbed his benefactor near Lu-
ther and touk over the « :r. It broke down. He need-

ed another for is they'd be after him once more.
As he stood beside the empty highway, a car came
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January 29, 195
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TATTOO LEGEND that he had

ry tells Cook’s self-pitying philoso-
phy. Girls never liked him; he won
respect of males only with his fists.

re

REFORM. | 37
“JEFFERSON city M0.

577 26a Se

" ae
Pag

ke ik eee

He was born in penury, with a deformed right eye-
lid which, even after a charity operation, would
make him sleep all his life with one eye open. He
began to hate people early. After his mother died,
his father abandoned him and his seven brothers
and sisters in a mine cave near Joplin, Mo., their
home. When child-welfare authorities put them out
for adoption, no one wanted the resentful, squint-
eyed 5-year-old. A woman agreed to board him at
county expense; later he said that on two Christ-

mases she bought him the bicycle he wanted, then. '

let it go back rather than pay the instalments. When
subsequent guardians found him too uncontrollable
to house, he morosely chose to go to a reformatory

where he had his life motto tattooed on his fingers —
(above). Later an older sister took him into her home. '

He was 14 and brimming with bitterness. He robbed

a cab driver of $11. For this he went back to the

reformatory, escaped, tried to steal a car and
other five years. He proved so unruly a priso!
* he was graduated to the state penitentiary

they booked him: William E. Cook Jr., 18 ye

_ 5 feet 434 inches tall, brown hair, intelliger. f

tient: 91 (just a little below average).
His sentence finally served, he looked uy
ther, toldhim, “I’mgonnaliveby thegun and
_ He went to Blythe, Calif., made a few dolla:
ing hash, then started to roam, 23 years old.
lenly sure the world owed him plenty. Inl
Texas he hitchhiked a ride from a mechani:
, for Oklahoma, then robbed his benefactor 1

_ “ther and took over the car. It broke down. H
. .ed ‘another for now they'd be after him onc

“As he stood beside the empty highway, ac:

_along and he stopped it at gun’s point. But in
-‘afamily of five. How was he going to get rido
pitt d Cae Ue ET init y .


/ 7 Wichita isooh
Randlett Falls ; Winthrop

few

MEXICO

COOK’S MURDER TOUR is shown numerically, beginning at Blythe,
to which he returned. The broken line: Mossers’ route until they met Cook.

t

THE 72-HOUR NIGHTMARE AND HOU IT ENDED

Carl Mosser and his family had left their Tli-
nois home a few days after Christmas to visit
friends and his brother in New Mexico. When
Cook forced his way into their crowded car three
days of nightmare began. He did not dare set
them free, could not bring himself to kill them.
- They drove back and forth through four states
(points 5 through 12 on map above), stopping
occasionally for gas or food. Once, at the filling-
station grocery of E. O. Cornwall in Wichita
Falls, Cook fureed Mosser into the store with
him and Mosser got a chance to jump his cap-
tor. “Help me!”’ he cried, pinning Cook’s arms.
“He’s going to kill me and take.my wife!” But
the elderly grocer mistook this for a mere scuf-
fle, seized his gun and forced both men out of the

Pe

t

WILY in the car was that of Carl Mosser,
er from Atwood, IIL, driving south with
elma, 29, and their three small children.

(Ee

TEXAS RANGER QUESTIONS BOY WHO “SAW” COOK

kidnaper. Now people “saw” him everywhere
and some really had; Texas rangers and police
of 10 other states fervently checked each lead.
Repeated efforts to reconstruct Cook’s move

ments were mise. Then someone rememl cred
that when he was in reform school be hod i_scai-
ened to throw another poy down. 2 mie shaft.
A search of te Joplin’ mine -. ca vegan and the
Mossers were soon fovnd. rst te be remeved
from the shaft was 3-year-o }7’am aSwe.T..

Ronald, 7, then S-year-c.4 Sar and finally,
Thelma and Carl Mosser. Usvder their: be ‘ies
was their little white dog, )i:ed with ‘nis mas-
ter and mistress. Cook, now a ci ze tng, un-
predictable bundle of hate and fear, had long
since thumbed his way bac}. to Blythe. Calif.

Spaaears - ee 2 a neon w. bs Paice,
{OME was this farmhouse where Mosser,
as a hard-working, friendly man, raised
its on 160 acres, was saving a little money.

UNALERT GROCER CORNWALL EXHIBITS HIS .44

store. Two nights later Cook reached adecision,.

In a savagely symbolic and probably uncon-
scious gesture of revenge on the family life he
himself had never had, he drove the Mossers
toward his former home town of Joplin. When
the children began Locry and Mrs. Mosser grew
hysterical he tied and gazged them. Mosser,
driving hurriedly, stopped the car and Cook de-
liberately began shooting one after the other.
Ile threw the bodies down a mine shaft within
the Joplin city limits. Two days after the rid-
dled, bloody car, still containing the children’s
Christmas-given Hopalong Cassidy hats, was
found near Tulsa. Governors asked all citizens
tu search their property foot by foot for clues
to the missing family; Mosser’s twin (opposite
page) gotan Army leave so he could use his re-
SAR was a dark blue 1949 Chevrolet se- semblance to his brother to jog the memories :
\was ideal from Cook’s criminal viewpoint of those who might have seenahim. Through a sas % Ta ante
videly used make and of unobtrusive color. patchwork of reports Cook was identified as the JOPLIN FACES REFLECT WHAT WAS IN THE PU)


ed?” There’s often a good chance that a
furnace has not been checked for some
time. When this is the case, the William-
son, actor that he is, will pull up his
coat collar and pretend to shiver.

“Goodness gracious,” he will say.
“What on earth would happen to you if
there was a heavy snowfall and your fur-
nace failed and a repair expert couldn’t
get through the snow to you?”

It’s a frightening-enough question to
many people. So the fraud, flashing
spurious credentials establishing him as
a furnace expert, will often be taken
down to the cellar to examine things.
When this happens it’s usually too bad
for whoever let him in. Because the
things that he finds wrong with the fur-
nace are simply frightening.

“Not only will this furnace of yours
be likely to break down completely
without notice,” he’ll say, “but there’s
something even more serious down in
your cellar.” Here the con man will stop
and look almost pious. “There just
could,” he’ll go on, “be a fire down

there in that unattended furnace of
yours—a fire that could completely des-
eas hia lovely property.”

ow there often follows half a day
or a full day of a Williamson—or two or
three Williamsons—down in a cellar fix-
ing the furnace. When they’re through
the furnace is sure as hell fixed—but
bad. The BBB has a record of a recent
case in the vicinity of Cleveland where
an innocent new widow, loaded with
cash from her late husband’s insurance
policies, fell afoul of the Williamsons.
She had a furnace that was practically
new but by the time a couple of Wil-
liamsons got through fixing it, at a cost
of several hundred dollars, it was in
really bad shape and, not long after-
ward, had to be replaced.

The private lives of the Williamsons is
something quite different than that part
of their lives that the public sees. They
gather once a year, in the springtime, in
Cincinnati, from the four corners of the
land—the middle-aged men and women
and the younger folk. It is in Cincinna-

ti’s Spring Grove Cemetery that the Wil-
liamsons bury their dead—those of the
clan' who have died on the road during
the year and been shipped to a Cincin-
nati ‘undertaker to be held for spring-
time burial.

The Williamsons appear in Cincinnati
in dream cars, costly furs, and blinding
jewelry. Glancing at them in Cincinnati
you’d never think they lived in trailer
camps all the year round; they look as if
they had stepped out of mansions. Even
the coffins that their dead go under-
ground in—all the way to Hell, some-
body once suggested—are really super-
duper.

“Will the Williamsons ever give up
their racket?” I asked an official of the
National Better Business Bureau.

“Not as long as there are people in
the country who will believe a confi-
dence man,” was the reply. ‘“‘And don’t
forget this vital fact: the Williamsons
keep marrying among themselves, and
boy, are they breeders!”

HHH

“Rather Kill than Eat!”

8:30 Tuesday morning. He had asked
the rancher to pull him out of the ditch,
but the rancher couldn’t do it with his
little pickup. He offered to call a garage
for the motorist, but the latter told him
not to bother. Asked to describe the
motorist, he said:

“He was a young fellow, 23 or 24,
maybe. Sort of short and stocky. Brown

. curly hair. Lantem-jawed, kind of tough

looking. Wore a dark brown leather
jacket.”

That same aftemoon, city officers
located a gas station in Tulsa where Carl
Mosser had gassed up on his credit card
on Saturday, shortly before noon. The
attendant remembered the Illinois car
well, and said he was sure it contained
only the man and his family when he
saw it.

About this same time, the wide-
spread publicity being given the case by
all media began to pay off. The driver of
a big oil truck rig told police he’d seen
the young guy in the leather jacket
standing by the mired Chevy around
8:40 a.m. Tuesday. He had flagged

down the trucker and asked him for a
ride to a telephone. The trucker drop-
ped him at a drug store in the Osage
Hills shopping center, a few miles west
of Tulsa. He added the information that
the short, stocky youth had a bad
squint in one eye and some sort of tat-
too on the back.of one hand. He was
very nervous, and talked very little.
Clerks in the drug store remembered
the fellow, too. They said he was jittery.
He asked for change for a dollar and
tried to call a taxi, but his hands were
trembling and he was unfamiliar with
the dial system so one of the clerks dial-
ed for him. He left before the cab came.
The investigators now had a good
description of the suspect and it was in-
corporated into an all-points bulletin.
Reports that he had been sighted began
to come in from half a dozen states, but
none could be verified. Meanwhile, on

70

(from page 56)

Thursday morning, a massive search for
the bodies of the Mosser family got un-
derway. Several hundred volunteers
joined the official posses.

That same morning, another lead
came in from Oklahoma City, 100 miles
to the southwest. Sheriff Bob Turner,
after studying the mass murder suspect’s
description, riffled through his files and
came up with a hot clue. On the after-
noon of Saturday, December 30th, Cy
Siwane, a mechanic from Tahoka,
Texas, had reported to Turner’s office
that he had been held up, robbed and
kidnaped by a young hitchhiker. He had
picked up the short, curly-haired hitch-
hiker about 1 a.m. on U.S. 87, outside
Lubbock, Texas. The latter said he was
bound for Joplin, Missouri, but he
spoke little as they sped north to Amar-
illo, then east into Oklahoma on Route
66. He did confide that he was an ex-
con and had been having a hard time
eg work. He said he had just come
rom El Paso, and showed his benefac-
tor some Mexican coins.

He made his move after they passed
Oklahoma City. Then he stuck a gun in
Siwane’s ribs, an automatic. He took the
man’s wallet, containing $90, and made
him get in the trunk. Siwane pried up
the lid with a tire iron and jumped out
when he slowed down on a dirt road.
The thief stopped the car, yelled and
waved his gun, but he didn’t shoot as his
erstwhile captive ran into the wocds.

Highway patrolmen founc the car
abandoned on Route 66 a few miles
away, near Luther. It had developed
motor trouble. In his haste to get away
from the car, apparently, the robber had
left a small duffel bag in the car. In it
was some clothing, a box containing a
brand new .32 automatic pistol and a
box of cartridges. In the pistol box was
a receipt made out on December 28th
by an El Paso pawnshop to William E.
Cook, of an address in St. Louis, Mis-
souri. Some of the clothing bore the ini-

tials ““W.E.C.”

The victim’s description of the gun-
man tallied closely with the Mosser case
suspect. Sheriff Turner had filed a rou-
tine request for information from St.
Louis police, but with no particular ur-
gency, since the hitchhiker incident was
a minor crime, and no one had been
hurt. Now, however, the FBI came into
se picture and things began to move
ast.

Although working on a cold trail,
probers nevertheless managed to find a
farmer in the Luther area who recalled
an incident he saw about 2 o’clock Sat-
urday afternoon. He had seen a young
guy in a dark leather jacket get out ofa
stalled Texas car and flag down a west-
bound blue Chevy with Illinois plates.
He noticed three kids in the car.

Thus an important link was forged.
No doubt now remained that the
stocky, curly-haired youth who called
himself Cook was the abductor and pre-
sumed murderer of the Mosser family.
And now, too, the FBI came up with
more on Cook. Records of the Joplin
police and the Missouri State Peniten-
tiary at Jefferson City provided a full
history on the man.

William Edward Cook, 22, fitted the
witnesses’ descriptions in every particu-
lar, including the drooping right eyelid.
He had spent nearly 10 years of his
young life in reformatories or prison.
Born in Galena, Kansas, youngest of a
family of seven children, he was brought
to Joplin, in southwestem Missouri, af-
ter his mother’s death. He was then six
months old. His brothers and sisters
were adopted, but amy d no one
wanted the squinting little baby, and as
he grew older he retaliated with a bitter
hatred for the world which he demon-
strated again and again. He was sensitive
about his under-sized body, oversized
head, and bad eye defect. At the age of
11 he was sent to Boonville Training
School as a delinquent child. Released
after a year, he was back in a few
months for trying to hold up a Joplin
taxi driver.

BY THE

you Fir

MAG

ADRU!(”
WILL HAV

SOME

Ithappense
Every 20 m

average day, there

accident caused b)
Sometimes
Sometimes a wom
child. And someti:
himself.

He doesn't
can’t help it. And
happening.

Every 20 n
It’s probat
time he was (run)
he’s probably v«:
thing like eight ©
ina couple of |)
chances are two:
he’s a hea
drinker.

The p
problem. And w«
off the road beca
himself off.
The

can be done w «:
help us. Strictet
laws, stricter !a'
scientific breath
supervised (rea!
There’s a huge !
safety project jv
needs you toun
Help.

DRUNK& 1)
| BOX 1969
WASHINGTO”

1 [want to!

r
\

|

| My nar
|

| Address
|

| City.

Me me ee em

GET THE Pree’
FOR HE |

US. DEPAR

NATIONAL HiCltWa
naan

tees |

it all.
‘ord is con-
l€ COiG gray
n a disecov-
touch off
history of
i lonely
e Road at
st about
sometimes
ca. The
Vas War-
deputy.
noticed a
ith Hlinois
suining its
or help, he

the same
{to cheek
‘ey Was
ide of the
aved with
> crimson
oor, cush-
uphols-
rder were
thing. A
ations in
holes.
odies to
as the

Pawhus-
“Ss to the
‘eport to
; distant.
Criminal
Investi-
r Tulsa

and a

| fe
ONUS-LENGTH FE

5

w*?

an

tumber of Tulsa city officers. As Smith
kd a search of the surrounding area,
lovelace and his aides examined the
blood-drenched sedan. They found four
bullet holes in the back seat and one in
the driver’s seat. Blood was crusted
uound them, indicating that the slugs
tad ripped through flesh before slam-
ning into the seats. In the back seat
they found four spent shells from a .32
aliber automatic.

The veteran officers did not begin to
wpreciate the full horror of the case,

Tattoos on killer’s fingers spelled out ‘“‘'HARD LUCK’’—a legend equally prophetic for him and his victims

however, till they examined the bloody
clothing strewn about the car’s interior.
The items included a small boy’s blue
jeans, a boy’s short-sleeved shirt, a
man’s sport jacket, a woman’s cloth
coat—and a baby’s frilly white dress.
There was a boy’s cowboy hat, its brim
ripped, and a child’s picture book, its
covers soaked with blood.

A blue baby blanket had a small
round hole in its middle, and powder
burns around the hole left no doubt
that a gun muzzle had been pressed

against. it before the gun was fired.

Chief Lovelace, no stranger to vio-
lence, was appalled. ‘““My God!” he ex-
claimed. “This car is a slaughterhouse
on wheels! It looks like a whole family
was killed in it—even little kids have
been slaughtered!”

Lovelace and-his men found no lack
of identification in the car; the registra-
tion, plus drivers’ licenses, cards and
other papers in a wallet and a women’s
purse found in the glove compartment,
indicated the sedan belonged to a Carl

55

~


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nek
eS mnaate
tent ta re

\i
®

Handcuffed suspect Cook was captured in Baja California by Mexican Police Chief
Morales of Tijuana who nabbed fugitive while he awaited his lunch order in a cafe

Mosser, 33, of Atwood, Illinois. His wife
was Thelma Mosser, 29. A _ family
snapshot showed a husky young man
and a pretty, pleasant-faced brunette
with three sunny-haired children, two
little boys and a baby girl.

The wallet, flecked with flood, held
$200 worth of travelers checks made
out to Carl Mosser, but it contained no
cash.

Technicians from the Tulsa police
crime lab checked the car and began list-
ing the physical evidence. The area
search yielded nothing. No bodies. No
weapons. No clues. The car itself, how-
ever, provided ghastly evidence of mass
murder.

Calls to Atwood, Illinois filled in the
picture of the Mosser family group. Carl

56

Mosser had a small farm outside of
Atwood, near Decatur, and he was well
known in his community. He and his
wife and three children, Ronald Dean,
7, Gary Carl, 5, Pamela Sue, 3, had left
home Friday afternoon, December
29th, on a week’s holiday trip to visit
Carl’s twin brother, an Army lieutenant
stationed in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
They were traveling east on U.S. Route
66. They had sent cards to friends and
relatives, postmarked the 30th at Clare-
more, Oklahoma, 27 miles northeast of
Tulsa, saying they’d had breakfast at the
Will Rogers Hotel there. That was the
last word from them.

Carl’s brother -was worried when the
family didn’t arrive in Albuquerque by
New Year’s Day, but when he telephon-

ed relatives in Atwood, they couldg
him no news. When Chief Lovelace t
phoned him with the shocking new,
promised to obtain leave and com
Tulsa as soon as possible.

George Blaine had little doubt that
five of the Mossers had been murdeng
quite probably after being kidnaped
a vicious, trigger happy hitchhiker b
on robbery. Inquiries in Claremore e
firmed that the family had stopped
the hotel there for breakfast, so it se
ed obvious the mass slaughter must ha
occurred somewhere between Claremo

and Tulsa. Crews of deputies and sta
patrolmen set out to comb the ditche
woods, fields and roads along the 2;
mile stretch of Route 66, expecting an
moment to come upon the five b

i bodies.

gs AS the bloody sedan furth

technicians found several more eject
cartridge shells and pried four mash
slugs out of the back seat upholster
All were marked with blood. The
could find no clue to the killer’s iden

ty, however. They found a profusion ¢
fingerprint smudges, but most seems]
to belong to the Mosser children a
their mother. There was no way to¢

termine immediately whether a fe
prints made by one or more adult mik

belonged to the killer or to Carl Mose

Technician Sam Shepherd called:
curious circumstance to the attention
Chief Lovelace and Investigator Graves

“‘The speedometer reads 186
miles. But this lube sticker, dated Dk
cember 28th at Hammond, Illinc
shows the mileage was 15,500 whent
was serviced then. Hammond is near A
wood. Only about 600 miles from her
They left on the trip the next day,»
that should make it about 16,100.

“How did they manage to ng
3,100 miles from Illinois to here?”

Chief Lovelace looked up in surprix.
‘“‘That means the car didn’t com
straight here from Claremore. The killer
must have made them drive an extn
2,500 miles. Hell, that’s almost acros
the country!”

“That would account for the tim
element, though,” Graves replied
“That’s been puzzling me. The Mosss
disappeared Saturday, but their c#
didn’t turn up in the ditch till Tuesday.
Driving all that time, or forcing Moser
to drive, the killer could have run
that mileage.”

e question was, where had the ki
er taken them? And why?

The search now was expanded inte
surrounding counties and a thorough
canvass was made of all gas stations, gw.
ages, and business establishments ce
roads throughout the region, hoping
find someone who might have seen the
Mosser family, and possibly their cp
tor, in the blue Chevrolet.

The first clue, however, came fra
closer to the site of the abandoned ca,
when an Osage County rancher ¥s
found who told of speaking to a ma
standing beside the blue Chevy stuckis
the ditch on Apache Road at about

(Continued on page

KAN

From the appalling evidence in
abandoned car, Tulsa County Sheil

CO!

Spec

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in Os
nity
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1972, a la’
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T!


COOK, William &., wh, asphyx Calif.

There was a lot police didn’t know about the cross-country
murderer being sought over half a continent, but abundant

evidence clued them to one fact with absolute certainty:

“HE'D RATHER
KILL THAN EA

: a

- ‘a

Bodies of slain Mosser family (above)
were found in old mine shaft. Robert
Dewey (be/ow) was killed because he
was in wrong place at the wrong time

(Imperial)

December lc,

by RANDALL SHANLEY
Special Investigator for OFFICIAL DETECTIVE STORIES

HE MURDERED bodies that
marked his trail through Western
States were strewn with reckless
abandon, wild seeds that sprouted tears,
tragedy and terror. When the full story
of this one man’s incredible orgy of.vio-
lence finally emerged, headline writers
across the nation dug into their bag of
horror superlatives for words to describe
the fiend and his appalling deeds.
Kill-crazy. Trigger-happy. Mad-dog
killer. Bloodthirsty. The New York Mir-
ror, in a long feature on the case in its
Sunday edition, called him “The Most
Vicious Killer in American History.”
Superlatives, however, have a built-in
weakness: The more superlatives you
use, the less they accomplish. They are
self-defeating, for to the intelligent read-
er their excessive use smacks ‘of exagger-
ation. rae
Ironically , although it is indisputable
that in this case all the superlatives were
justified, they were grossly inadequate
to describe the full extent of the deprav-
ity which drove the mass murderer who
admitted killing six people—three of
them children—and who was suspected
of having slain many more. Oddly
enough, the most chillingly accurate and
graphic description of the man was
given in five simple words by a sheriff's
deputy who figured in the murderer’s
last days of freedom. After observing
the slayer and listening to his unemo-
tional narration of how he dealt death
to those innocents who crossed his path,
the deputy was asked by a newsman:
‘““What’s this guy really like?”
The Western lawman was silent for a
moment, then said tersely: ‘“‘He’d rather

kill than eat!”? And that said it all.

So far as the official record is con-
cerned, the story began on the cold gray
morning of January 3rd when a discov-
ery was made which would touch off
the greatest manhunt in the history of
the Southwest. The scene was a lonely
area on little-traveled Apache Road at
the end of the Osage Nation, just about
three miles west of Tulsa, sometimes
called the Oil Capital of America. The
man who made the discovery was War-
ren Smith, an Osage County deputy.
Smith, the day before, had noticed a
blue Chevy two-door sedan with Illinois
tags mired in the ditch. Assuming its
owner had gone to arrange for help, he
did nothing about it that day.

When the car was still in the same
place the next day, he stopped to check
it out. He found that the car key was
still in the ignition, and the inside of the
car looked like it had been sprayed with
blood out of a-fire hose. The crimson
gore was everywhere, on the floor, cush-
ions, windows, ceiling and side uphols-
tery. Strewn about in wild disorder were
bloodstained blankets and clothing. A
number of small round perforations in
the back seat looked like bullet holes.

The vehicle needed only bodies to
qualify it beyond any doubt as the
scene of wholesale murder.

Deputy Smith’s county seat, Pawhus-
ka, was some half hundred miles to the
north, so he radioed the first report to
Tulsa, which is only a few miles distant.
He was joined shortly by Chief Criminal
Deputy Bruce Lovelace, County Investi-
gator Ray Graves and other Tulsa
County deputies, state police and a

OFFI CIAL DETECTIVE sTORIis, AP RIL 1973

1952

Tattoos «

number of Tulsa «
led a search of
Lovelace and his
blood-drenched s¢
bullet holes in th:
the driver’s seat
around them, in‘
had ripped throt
ming into the s
they found four
caliber automatic

‘The veteran ©
appreciate the {

Sheriff Don Cox (above) holds knife used
by killer described as “another Blue-
beard with moral concepts of a savage”

ers, but without uncovering any clues
to the mystery.

Early the next day, dragging opera-
tions were begun in Steamboat Slough.

Meanwhile, a report of the discovery
was sent out over the teletype system.
It gave the approximate measurements
of the victim, together with a general
description based on the findings of
the county pathologist. This informa-
tion was also given to the newspapers.

According to the autopsy report, the
woman was probably a brunette about
twenty-eight years old, five feet four
inches tall and weighing around 120
pounds. The cause of her
death could only be con-
jectured, but an analysis
of the vital organs was be-
ing made.

The dismembering had
been done crudely, the
slayer using a hatchet or
other chopping instrument
to complete his frightful
handiwork.

The Missing Persons files
failed to furnish a promis-
ing lead, but on June 23rd,
the newspaper accounts of
the case brought an inquiry
from the police at Santa
Rosa, north of San Fran-
cisco.

A young housewife had
disappeared from her home
there on May “9th, and her
relatives said her general ”

In an effort to establish a link in the case of the floating torsos in California’s
American River, Deputy District Attorney Alfred Mundt (right) discusses a match-
ing clue, two lengths of electrical wire, being examined by the man at left

description matched that of the mur-
der victim. It was feared that she had
been slain by a young ex-soldier, a
psychopathic case, who had previously
been arrested for allegedly attempting
to assault her.

Twenty-four hours later, however,
this lead blew up. The supposed vic-
tim, upon seeing her name in the papers,
‘notified the authorities that she was
alive and well. She promised to get
in touch with her relatives.

The toxicologist who had been called
into the case reported that he could find
no trace of any poison in the stomach

To the unsuspecting girl he had painted
a life of luxury, but when she saw his
home (below), she cried, “You lied to me!”

and other organs of the victim. With
the cause of death still undetermined,
the body was then buried in the county
cemetery.

After several days, the dragging oper-
ations also ended in complete failure,
no sign of the missing head or limbs
having been found.

Sheriff Don Cox labeled the case the
most baffling Sacramento crime since
1930, when -another “torso murder,”
still unsolved, had occurred there.

. McVeigh, who was in charge of the
investigation, worked tirelessly to un-
cover some clue to the victim’s identity.
He spent long hours ques-
tioning persons along the
river front, hoping to lo-
cate the place where the
slayer had butchered his
victim.

In spite of all his efforts,
no progress was made. Al-
though several casual sus-
pects were investigated, no
one was arrested, and
there’ were no further de-
velopments of any conse-
quence until July 13th.

On that date, a yachting
party of socially prominent
men and women discovered
what they thought must be
the leg of a show-window
dummy floating in Steam-
boat Slough.

Upon examining it, how-
ever, they were shocked to

Undersheri fi
Mundt exan

to support

find that it
They tov
Constable \

who ?
Me
Lavel!@™™u:

covery raisé

victim’s he
their chan
tity.

But alth
surgeon re
had been h
undoubted]:
found, re:

were unsuc
was abandc
Weeks wv
making the
Six mont
grisly disc
stalled for
that it was
among the |
history.
McVeigh
break in th
admit that «
ing limbs \
now be ne
the victim
the murder:
confess, it
tain a con
dence, for ;
‘after repud
The publ
case when,


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vy aoe ta dat i

» and to know you love me too is heave

_ ly. Someday when you are quite.
ready, dearest, we will stay ‘together =>
for always.

(Continued from page 101) froma Man--

chester gunsmith in August 1914. Another
“strong point against him was'the statement
of a Lytham jeweller that he had made

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After a brief hearing, Holt was form-
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On. February 23rd, he was tried before
Mr. Justice Green at Manchester Assizes.
A sensation was created at the outset

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x ¥ Holt had her in his power. Her devotion os .the , course aiaae ie Peuhecaitan '501 East Baltimore Street ’ Baltimore 2, Md.

fe to him was complete:and she apparent witnesses were called. | Mr. Paul. Callisy |

Ay had a blind faith in him, ae ad Holvia\ counsel babed Plas cule hienyeoe Do YOU Want Extra Dollars?

¥ On October 22nd, after, the insurance eh eenony of Holt’s father, and made, ‘SBISG obeetunt ere F ce
es had already been taken out, she wrote: ois Doan Pree Serge Spier chert gest UA ebictiones adant ents Dept. SP 4
a , a é Dept. if
q ier. i | <.|.11-49 Macfadden Publications, Inc., 205 i
BY I am very sorry, dearest, that I was ‘ : ne | E. 42nd S York 17, N.Y
ES cross with you sometimes last week- ‘ wien vee little peri Brehm oe che, 42nd St., New York 17, N.'Y. M4
sy end. I will be so good next time. I nang of the gun, the conductor’s identi- | Ny
a wanted to put my arms around you fication and the insurance policies could |- IF N ATURE SLEEPS :
" today and kiss you, but you weren't not na precen explained away. ‘ the |. Take vO.8.R." it you lack Pep, Energy, Vitality and is
a here and I felt so lonely. I really do After a trial that lasted five days, the font have natural desires for’ fun and good times, fy
4 jove you, Eric. Come to me as soon jury found Frederick Rothwell Holt guilty | i you a this may be due to faulty elimination wane "
% as you are able. Let me know the of first degreé murder:. Mr. Justice Green NATURE taking 0.f fn Herb and Vegetable Ly
¥ “ y date and I will make the arrangements at once pronounced the death penalty,” $1.43 for a Big Box of 160 Tablete eee mayo a if
3 ty ' An effort of Holt’s lawyer to'appeal the’ Now and SAVE 42c, WHITE TODAY! ry
38 at some place where we can be alone. 4 one |" “STANDARD R Y ,
fe With my love and kisses, yours always. case to a higher court was denied. Holt Dept. MA-14 ° anOy OMAN land 4
BN Hathieen paid the penalty for a! most heinous mur- | Dept. MA- et ee ;
a f - der on. March 31st, 1920. : “ 4
a Two weeks before her death, she wrote —_ Be qi DETECTI

Neate tose tae

nee

ie
as,

i
pad

ecstatically:

My darling Eric: After reading your
beautiful letter, I feel that I could
kiss you so much if you were here.
But I will have to save them until
I see you at Christmas. You: know,
darling, how much you mean to me,

Mystery of the

(Continued from page 39) December 22nd,
seventeen-year-old Angelo Pellegrini went
rabbit-hunting along: the bank of the
American River near his home in Sacra-
mento: About a mile and a. half: down-
stream from the H Street Bridge, he no-
ticed something lying in some brush in
the shallow water near the shore.
Approaching the water’s edge, he studied
the object and gradually recognized part

The name Richard Hutton, as used
insthis story, is not the real name of
“the person concerned. This innocent
person has been given a fictitious name
to protect his identity. Photograph of
Frederick Holt appears on page 28.

Floating Torsos a

days, and the prospects‘ of solving the
mystery seemed considerably.:more fav-
orable than in the Steamboat Slough mur-
der. ie re
- In addition to the bracelet, which offered
a possible means ‘of identifying the: vic-
tim, the investigators. obtained a ‘good set
of fingerprints from the corpse. ‘
But the investigation that was begun
hopefully soon brought one disappoint-

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Without pausing for a second look, he i

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office.

A party of investigators, led by. Knoll
and McVeigh, accompanied the youth to
the scene and found the headless, legless
corpse of a woman.

She was evidently a girl in her early
twenties, with a slim, shapely figure of
medium height. There were no distin-

determined, no woman of the victim’s ap-
proximate age and description had: been
reported missing. An all-points tele-
type bulletin telling all that was known
or could be surmised concerning her ap-
pearance brought no response.

Next, her fingerprints were not on file
-at the State Bureau of Identification; and
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sy Her head and legs had been hacked off free of birthmarks, moles or other es & zUheer Up, an.
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counters ‘or’ in “one of ‘the "neighboring “
2 ' measured | thirty-three inches; her waist,

counties. .

This theory’ Radeiwed considerable pub-
licity, but the completed’ autopsy showed
that there was no basis for it. Dr, Wal-
lace found that the present victim had
never been a mother, was not pregnant at
the time she died, and had not undergone
an illegal operation. —

No trace of any poison was found in
her internal organs, and the cause of
death, like the motive for the slaying, re-
mained ‘a matter for speculation.

The approximate date of the murder was .

also in doubt. The torso was in good con-
dition when found, but this might be due
in part to the low temperature of the
water,
states were experiencing one of the cold-
est winters on record.

Dragging operations had begun shortly
after the torso was discovered. No trace
of the head or legs was found, however,
and after several days these efforts were
discontinued.

Since the body might have been in the
water anywhere from a few days to two

weeks or even longer, the officers again -

faced the possibility that it had been
carried many miles downstream. Thus,
they could not assume that the murder
scene was near Sacramento; it might be
located in a totally unsuspected area, per-

‘haps in one of the neighboring. counties.

Presumably, however, both of the bodies
had been dumped into the water some-
where on the American River, the one
found in Steamboat Slough drifting no
less than twenty-five or thirty miles, from
one end of the county to the other:
Lacking. other ‘clues, McVeigh concen-
trated his efforts on trying to identify the
victim through her bracelet. It was a cos-
tume piece; and he thought it was suf-
ficiently unusual to offer promise. In the
center of ‘the gold band was a raised de-
sign with a setting of thirty-two green
and white stones, three of which were

‘missing,

When the’ local jewelry establishments
were canvassed, | it: developed that the

‘bracelet, while not expensive, .was more

unusual than McVeigh had expected, None
of ‘the dealers could find it listed in any
wholesaler’s, catalogue, and all were sure
they had never sold a bracelet of that
particular type.

After failing to trace it in this manner,

McVeigh enlisted the aid of the Sacra-
mento newspapers, which published photo-
graphs of it. /

This brought a letter from a woman who
wrote that a mail-order firm in Kansas
City sold bracelets of a similar design.

McVeigh immediately followed up this tip,

but the Kansas City firm replied that its
bracelets were not of yellow gold, as
this.one was. McVeigh was advised to get
in. touch with a certain New York firm,
which might be the distributor which had.
supplied the bracelet.

While waiting for a reply from New
York, McVeigh gave the newspapers as
complete a description of the victim as
could be furnished, based on a scientific
reconstruction of the dismembered body.

‘In publishing this description, the papers

included an appeal for information and
quoted Sheriff Cox as saying he believed
the case could be solved.if the public
would report any suspicious circumstances
that might possibly justify investigation.
Somewhere there must'*be someone who
had observed something, Cox declared,

-which if reported would lead to a break in

the puzzling case.

The girl was described as a ‘slender
brunette . with black: hair. Her age had
been estimated at twenty-two or Dede ista

California and all the western’

- said, had given birth to a baby. girl six-
~ teen’. months: ate ee, The, attending .}
cM athe: eas:

fives feet, aoae or five inches; her bust

twenty-seven; her hips, thirty-two and a
half. She had weighed around 115 or 120
pounds. She had small hands, a vaccina-
tion scar on her right arm and a hammer
thumb on her left hand.

This information and the sheriff's ap-
peal brought no immediate response from
the Sacramento ‘public. But on January
5th, the police of suburban Albany, on the
coast near Oakland, reported that the de-
scription was almost identical to that of
a missing Albany girl. :

Police Inspector Arthur Smith told
Undersheriff Knoll over the telephone that
he had become interested when he learned
that: the torso murder victim hada left
hammer thumb. So had the Albany girl,
he said. She also had a vaccination mark
on. her right arm.

The missing girl was Sally Ellis,‘an ex-
tremely pretty brunette of nineteen. She
had gone out on a date with an Oakland
man on the evening of October 3rd, and
her foster-parents had not seen her since.
They were inclined to suspect that she
had eloped with her escort, and they waited
several days for her to get in touch with
them. Then, when there was no word
from her, they notified the police.

Smith and the other officers working on
the case were handicapped by the fact
that Sally had not told her foster-parents
her boy friend’s name. They only knew
that he was considerably older than she,
and that he worked as a.car painter in
Oakland.

It was several weeks ative Smith. lo-

‘eated the man, Rex Brennan. He admitted

that he had taken Sally-out on October
3rd, but said he had brought her home
at two-thirty the next morning and left
her in front of the family apartment. He

denied that he had seen’her after that or

that he had any idea where she was. ,
Brennan had a~good reputation, but
Smith was not satisfied with his story that

-he had left on his vacation the same

morning he escorted ‘the girl home. He
claimed to have gone to Utah,: where he
spent the next two weeks.in Ogden and
Salt Lake City. -

An investigation soon disclosed that
Brennan actually had gone to Ogden, how-
ever, and he was -tentatively mnenret of
suspicion.

Te months passed, and then the miss-
ing girl’s foster-mother began to re-
ceive long-distance telephone calls from
a woman who asked for Sally and then
hung up without giving her name. Each
of the calls was made from Salt Lake
City.

Then, shortly before Christmas, Bren-
nan-again went to Salt Lake City on vaca-
tion. When he returned, early in Janu-
ary, Smith brought him in for questioning.
- Brennan broke down and admitted that
he had been seeing Sally in Salt Lake City.
When he went there the first time, he said,
she “followed” him and by some coin-
cidence obtained a room in the same hotel
where he was staying.

She made him ‘promise not to tell any-
‘one where she was, he declared, and that
was why he had’been concealing the truth.
When he last saw her, he said, in Decem-
ber, she was working in a nursing home
near Ogden.

Smith asked the Ogden and Salt Lake
City police to try to find some trace of
the girl, but thus far they had had no
success.

After telling Knoll all this, Smith ex-
plained how he had been able to check the
torso. murder -victim’s. . measurements
against those of the missing girl. Sally, he

pe

Albany - health.
record of the g
she was an expe
sets of measure
general descripti
a .striking rese

Smith said th:
pressed amazem
pared the physi
victim and Sally
be able to ident
tually was the r

Knoll was in
told him, but h
topsy report, wh
his abortion-mil
unlikely that the
Ellis. The repo:
had evidently ne

However, Kno
this otherwise }
thoroughly inve:
to take the ma’
surgeon.

When Dr. Wal
ing Albany girl
her left hand, a
right arm, and
same age, size a
tim, he remarke
sure the latter
but that it was ;

“Even in the c
said, “it would |

the similarity
hammer thumbs

After further
the Albany po)
officers, arrange
spector Smith tc
the thirty-six-ye
nan,. to. Sacram«
of the murder \

A court orde
headless, legless
hours before th:
ary 8th.

The result w
Mahon studied
then said he c«
identification w

Brennan, whc
he would be a k

. was found to b

dated, gazed’ at
earnestness befo
negative.

“It. may be Se
say whether it

EFORE retun

Mahon confer
then expressed
was that of Sa
ments showed
larger than the
surgeon was stil)
the murdered gi

Nevertheless,
cination mark ;

“the Albany poli:

gation. They sp«
locate a set of
only to find that
printed in any o
been employed.
a driver’s license

, her right thum


in California’s
scusses a match-

ie man: at left

» victim. With
undetermined,
d in the county

dragging oper-

mplete failure,

head or limbs

2d the case the
to crime since
torso murder,”
‘ed there.

charge of the
relessly to un-
ictim’s identity.
ng hours ques-
sons along the
hoping to lo-
ace where the
butchered his

f all his efforts,

was made. Al-. }
ral casual sus- *

nvestigated, no
aryested, and
no’ further de-
of any conse-.
{ July 13th.

ate, a yachting
ially prominent
men discovered
10ught must be

. show-window .
ting in Steam- . |

nii ; how-
rere cked to

A

Undersheriff Knoll (left) and Asst. D. A.
Mundt examine floor board for evidence
to’ support their case against murderer

find that it was actually a human’ leg.
~. They towed it to shore and notified
> Constable Walt Goodman of Courtland,
» who called the sheriff’s office.

McVeigh and Deputy Coroner Jack

Lavelle hurried to the scene. The dis-

2 covery raised their hopes of finding the
_victim’s head, which would improve
| their chances of establishing her iden--

» tity.

But although the county autopsy
surgeon reported that the leg, which
“had been hacked off near the hip, was
undoubtedly from the torso: previously
found, renewed dragging operations
were unsuccessful and finally the search
“was abandoned.

‘Weeks went by, each passing day
“making the case look more hopeless.
_ Six months after Goins had made his
grisly discovery, the investigation was
stalled for lack of clues, and it seemed

_that it was destined to take its place

‘among the unsolved enigmas of criminal
history.

McVeigh still hoped for some kind of
break in the case, but he was forced to
admit that even if the head and remain-
ing limbs were yet recovered it would
now be next to impossible to identify
the victim. In the unlikely event that
the murderer were to come forward and
confess; it might be impossible to ob-
tain a conviction on the slender evi-
dence, for many a slayer has gone free
after repudiating his confession.

The public had all but forgotten the .

Five months after the killer. had lured
his first victim to her death, he used

the same trick to entrap lovely

Maria Pulido (above). (Right).

Bracelet which the slayer

case when, on (Continued on pageil03) | forgot to remove

j

mal

Much credit for solution of the baffling
torso murder mysteries is due to alert-
ness of Mrs. Ira T. Anderson (above)


130 Trial by Ordeal

the tragic fate of the victims whose lives he snuffed out. I’m
simply pointing out that torturing the truth to picture Bill
as a monster is, to me, hypocrisy.

This is the twentieth century, not the twelfth. While we
have long since rejected demonology as a science, we have

enthusiastically embraced it as an art. We express our out-,

rage with horror comic books published for the young, yet
on an adult level we eagerly demand the same fare. As a
result, the men who report the news operate on the theory
that the simple and painful truth about those who wait to
die isn’t good enough. It must be sensationalized, mysticized,
horrorized. A certain number of monsters and fiends are
essential to reportorial tradition (and circulation), which
must be upheld at all cost.

Accordingly, the journalistic mythologist is always on the

lookout for new candidates, examining credentials, weighing
possibilities. Whenever the current crop runs low, or the
public tires of being horrified and outraged by the monsters
currently on display, the monster-makers invariably can be
depended upon to bring forth a new one. Their skill at ac-
complishing this feat is so uncanny that one would be al-
most tempted to believe they have some sort of working
arrangement with the Prince of Darkness himself. But that
would be the old-fashioned approach and they are anything
but old-fashioned. Actually, using only imagination and a
bag of tricks, they are able to turn out a product that would
make Hell blush with shame.

If clothes make the man, then words make the monster.

Once it is decided to give him the full treatment, capital
is made of any physical defects, differences or deformities,
however slight. If none exist, they always can be invented.
Bill Cook had a drooping eyelid; so did one of England’s
greatest kings, but that didn’t deter the papers from play-

seamesesmnnspmnectinesibienissedinaitiettl planes vcimniicieainlis-pteniee)

The Monster Myth 131

ing up Bill’s defect as though it were the mark of monster-
hood.

Because of libel laws monsters are never certified as au-
thentic members of the genus until found guilty or insane.
Yet the big buildup usually begins with the commission of
the crime and continues through the trial. If there’s an ac-
quittal, the promising candidate is dropped like a hot po-
tato. If conviction carries with it a term of imprisonment,
rather than the death penalty, he fizzles out as a monster
after a few days or weeks. The elements of life, death and
violence are essential. The weirdest factor of all is this: if
chance, fate or circumstance had acquitted or imprisoned
the “monsters” presently held on the Row, and had doomed
those acquitted or imprisoned, the Row still would hold the
same number of monsters. The headlines would remain as
big and black; the editorials denouncing them would be as
muscular; the demands for their necks would be as hysteri-
cal. Only the names would be changed.

The legal niceties established, the monster is fair game.
It’s always open season on him. His crime or crimes are chill-
ingly reconstructed, his imagined inhumanity is stressed.
He’s given a tag (red-light bandit, green-glove rapist, Man-
hattan maniac). Constitutionally and psychologically, he’s
a sinister, mysterious and alien being. He’s often under the
sway of lunar influences. The forces that motivate him are
brutally simple: he’s “kill crazy,” he’s “sex maddened.

Enough bad things can never be said about him. The
words used to describe him must always be scare words;
they must always bristle with indignation. “Psychopath”—
an epithet, not a diagnosis—is one of the best of these words;
it’s always proper to apply it to him and add the word

“beast.” It’s fashionable to write to the editor of a newspaper
who specializes in exposing and denouncing the monster


COOK, William E., wh, gassed CAS (Los Angeles) May 2, 1960

Fiends Who Went To The Gas Chamber

* i a a 7

ey

Mass killer William Cook (left) as he was collared by Mexican authorities.

WILLIAM (BAD EYE) COOK

‘by BILL KELLY

n the night of December 30th, Carl Mosser, his wife, Thelma, and their three
children and a family dog were returning from a trip from Illinois to New Mexi-
co. Everyone in the car was snoozing but Carl.

The road ahead was unusually still,
with no pedestrians nor motorized
traffic. Suddenly Mosser became
aware of an all-night service station
ahead. His gas gauge on empty, he
pulled in. As the service station at-
tendant checked his oil and filled his
car with gas, a hitchhiker approached

16

Mosser. He leaned into his window,
and asked politely, “How far you
folks going?”

Mosser looked the man over care-
fully and replied, “Tulsa.”

“I’m trying to get to Joplin,” the
stranger said. “My mother’s very
ill.”

STARTLING DETECTIVE,
March, 1994

*

Mosser’s wife, awake now, nudged
her husband and whispered, “No.”
There was something about the
stranger that frightened her. Perhaps
it was his drooping right eyelid that
made him look like something out
of a horror film. But Mosser was a
compassionate fellow. Smiling an-

gelically, he
and motioned
hop in the ba
ing children.
They had n¢
the hitchhik
forced Moss
highway and
road that by;
through grai
where they w
be noticed b:
pleaded with t
family but the
to his head ai
up and drive.
his life, and tl
did as he was


hamber

1 authorities.

J \

‘Ima, and their three
Illinois to New Mexi-

's wife, awake now, nudged
and and whispered, “No.”
as something about the
hat frightened her. Perhaps
; drooping right eyelid that
n look like something out
or film. But Mosser was a
onate fellow. Smiling an-

at Body of Robert Dewey, one of ame
aa Cook’s victims. ‘

gelically, he opened the back door
and motioned for the young man to
hop in the back seat with his sleep-
ing children.

They had not driven very far when
the hitchhiker pulled a gun and
forced Mosser to leave the main
highway and take the back country
road that bypassed cities and led
through grain and cotton regions
where they would be less likely to
be noticed by patrol cars. Mosser
pleaded with the man not to harm his
family but the stranger pressed a gun
to his head and warned him to shut
up and drive. The driver, fearing for
his life, and that of his entire family,
did as he was told.

Several times during their journey,
he threatened the sobbing, frightened
children to be quiet or he would kill
their father.

They zigzagged through Carlsbad,
New Mexico, El Paso, and Houston,
stopping only for gas or food. Un-
der the threat of death, no one in the
family tried to tip off any of the ser-
vice station attendants who waited
on them, or any of the station’s cus-
tomers who pulled alongside their
vehicle.

Two days later the car lumbered
into Wichita Falls, Texas. When they
pulled into a rest stop for food and
gas, Mosser lunged for the man’s
gun. A struggle ensued, and, hearing

‘It’s the end of the line,’

the gunman shouted to his five
captives. He shot the woman first
because she was crying the loudest.
Next was her husband; then their three
children. For good measure, he killed
the family dog.

Mosser’s cries for help, the attendant
came on the run, brandishing a ball-
bat.

The gunman broke from Mosser’s
grasp and unleashed a volley of shots
at the grocery clerk. With bullets nip-
ping at his heels, the clerk ran back
inside the store and called the po-
lice. The hitchhiker placed the gun
to the head of Mrs. Mosser, who was
frantic and out of control. As in-
structed, Mr. Mosser floorboarded it
and the car careened out of sight, the
children screaming.

“If you try a stunt like that again,”
the kidnapper warned Mosser, “I'll
kill your brats!”

Over the next two days the kid-

17


napper and his five terrified victims
drove through Texas and Arkansas,
winding up in the hitchhiker’s old
stomping grounds, Joplin, Missouri.
Now, in desperation, he told the
frightened family, “It’s the end of
the line.” Mrs. Mosser was scream-
ing and crying the loudest, so he
shot her through the head first, while
her terrified husband looked on help-
lessly.

Next he turned his weapon on Mr.
Mosser. He fired and Mosser
clutched at his head. Blood splat-
tered the windshield, the dashboard
and the terrified kids in the back
seat. Still screaming, the three chil-
dren died one by one, executionstyle,
a .32-caliber slug slamming into
their heads.

Then for good measure, the killer
finished off the family dog.

Mrs. Mosser didn’t die immedi-
ately. She was still barely alive. as
the hitchhiker drove them to a se-
cluded spot and dragged the bodies

18

of her husband and children and
dumped them into a deserted mine-
shaft. Blood was streaming down her
face from a gaping head wound.
When the hitchhiker noticed an eye
blink, he pumped another slug into
the young mother’s head before toss-
ing her unceremoniously into the
deep, dark mineshaft.

Meanwhile, the grocery clerk who
was lucky to have escaped with his
life, gave a fair description of the
man to the police. He was Cau-
casian, five-feet-five, brown eyes,
brown hair, stocky. And something
else that would attract the attention
of any alert law officer or citizen.
He had a grotesque, drooping right
eye.

Law enforcement officers from
New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and
Arkansas were involved in a frantic
search for the missing family, their
abductor, and Mosser’s maroon
Chevy. A combination of over 500
lawmen and citizen’s volunteers were

The executed members of the
Mosser family after bodies were
recovered from mineshatt.

involved in the manhunt.

It was after this incident that
Urleen Carlton hurried to Springfield
police headquarters to report her
daughter’s disappearance. The dis-
traught mother told detectives that
Betty was a quiet girl, intent on her
career as an artist. She had recently
graduated from a well-known school
of music in Jefferson City, and was
looking forward to pursuing a career
as a police artist. Betty had applied
for the job and was one of three
artists being considered for the job.

When Betty had not been heard of
for two days police began a thorough
search of the area where her car had
been found abandoned in the hope
of picking up some clue concerning
what might have happened to the
blonde-haired beauty. On the third
day a hundred-man posse scoured
the countryside dipping deep into
Missouri gorges on the chance that
the 23-year-old girl had been kid-
napped, murdered, and her body
dumped.

As an added procedure, lawmen
gave instructions for the preparation
of circulars containing the missing
girl’s photograph and description.
These were distributed to every law
enforcement agency in Missouri and
the surrounding states.

There was a possibility, the detec-
tives speculated, that Bill Cook was
on a rampage and could be linked to
the girl’s disappearance.

One week after the pretty artist had
been reported missing her cream-col-
ored Ford was found in a ditch just
outside Springfield. When the news
of the find was publicized during
Friday night’s newscasts a response
to a public appeal for help came
quickly. A young man who was
coming home from work reported
that he had seen a Dodge pickup
truck force Betty’s car off the side
of the road. He had driven by slow-
ly and was able to give the police a
good description of the man who
yanked the girl from her car and had
taken off with her.

The girl’s naked and ravished body
was later found fifteen miles from
Jefferson City. A coroner said that
so much semen was discovered
smeared across her belly and breasts

that more
was involy
It didn’t
He always
doctor’s re
where Coc
reported th
ejaculation
taining an ¢
etration.”
The first
volving the
discovery «
found aban
Tulsa, Okl:
The car v
the Tulsa «
for clues. I
for a gun tl
chased. De
sufficient ¢€
viction in
recovered.
For the 1
coordinate
which enc
quest of th
Eventually.
the mines
Lawmen w!
to the pit.
ies.

By the ti
had been re


of the fabric had been ripped away.
Robinson measured one pair of
trousers for size against the youth’s
and the fit seemed perfect. The other
pair was two sizes larger, obviously
for a man two to three inches taller.

OOKS like I scared you, Joe, awhile
back when I mentioned there’d be
bloody clothing to dispese of. You fig-
ured you’d have to hide it in a better
place than the barn.”
The youth said nothing. He shifted
from one foot to the other nervously.
“It might go easier with you if you
told the truth, instead of trying to cover
up,” suggested the deputy. “And while
you’re talking, I’d like to know who
bloodied these big trousers.”
“I don’t know ...I don’t know...”
Jones’ voice trailed off.
Later that night, however, Robinson
claimed, he broke down.
“TI was there when Ellis was killed, but
I didn’t do it,” Robinson quoted him
as saying. He accused a 20-year-old ex-
Navy veteran, John F. Hightower, of

Missouri

Was he a hitch-hiker, perhaps, who
had been picked up by the Mossers and
who had gone berserk with a gun?

At any rate, he had to be identified
and found, if at all possible. Police
now had two big jobs—to locate the
Mossers, dead or alive, and to find and
question this youth.

Detectives Walter Turner and Mur-
ray Smith were sent at once to the drug
store. But the stranger with the droopy
eye had disappeared.

Orders were issued to all patrol cars
to question any man who answered the
description of the youth. Also, several
squads were sent to hotels and rooming-
houses in Tulsa in the hope that
he might have stopped in the city.

Meanwhile, the radio stations con-
tinued to broadcast the information
which Stege had given to them. The
Highway Patrol also sent out broad-
casts to the State Police of Missouri,
Arkansas, Texas and Kansas. In turn,
these agencies passed an alert to all
county sheriffs and to city officers with-
in their districts.

Newspapers picked up the story and
it flashed across the country on tele-
type wires. A family of five was miss-
ing—mother, father and three little
children. Their bloodstained automo-
bile had been discovered. Possibly, al-
most probably, they had been killed.

Over thousands of square miles of
territory—desert, mountain, woodland
and river valley—thousands of persons
were watching and searching for the
Mossers, hoping against hope that they
would be found, somehow, still alive
and unharmed.

And thousands of persons were
watching for the youth with the droopy
eye and the bright red shirt. Who was
he? What horrible secret did he know
about those pools of blood and dis-
charged bullets in the Mosser car?

Lieutenant Chris Mosser, identical
twin of Carl, arrived at the Tulsa air-
port Wednesday morning and was
brought to Headquarters by Investi-
gator Graves.

The Army officer shook his head in
complete bewilderment. “I can’t un-
derstand it,” he said. “Carl never
picked up hitch-hikers, even when he
was alone. And I can’t imagine him
picking somebody up when Thelma and
the children were with him. The fel-
low must have stopped him and forced
his way into the car.”

Fae were pouring into Tulsa Head-
People from as far away

as St RR tenth: Missouri, were certain
they had seen either the Illinois fam-
ily or the youth with the droopy eye.
Dorothy Adair, a waitress in Clare-
more, Oklahoma, called and said she
was positive the Mossers had eaten
breakfast there on December 31, and
Mrs. Mosser had written some post-

62

wielding the club in the brutal beating
of Ellis, according to Robinson.

Harrison County District Attorney
Bill Woods, his assistant, George
Prendergast, Junior, and Deputy Robin-
son said that Jones made the following
confession:

Walking along the rural road toward
their homes, Joe and his companion,
Hightower, came upon Ellis asleep in
his parked auto in the middle of the
road. Awakening him, they suggested
that he move the car so it wouldn’t be
struck by another auto. An argument
followed; Jones broke off the rotted
fence post and handed it to Hightower
who clubbed Ellis.

He and Hightower then loaded the ©

unconscious and bleeding man into the
auto. They set the hand throttle and
put the car in gear. It careened off the
road, tore down fence posts, hit a stump,
lurched off and struck a tree and Ellis
was thrown out.

Robinson had the piece of rotted
fence Post brought in. “Is this the club
he used?’

Massacre (Continued from Page 49)  ogricy

cards.

Deputy Smith, County Investigator

Ray Graves and Detective Al De Moss
hurried with Lieutenant Mosser to
Claremore, which is only 27 miles east
of Tulsa.
They questioned the woman and she
nodded toward the Army officer. ‘The
man I saw looked just like him except
that he wasn’t. wearing a uniform,” she
stated. “The woman was a pretty bru-
net and they had three little young-
sters with them. One boy was about
seven and the other a year or two
younger. The little girl was a blonde
and about three. No one was with
them, and I saw them drive away to-
ward the west. That was around eight
o’clock Sunday morning.”

Unquestionably, Miss Adair had seen
the Mossers. The officers felt that they
had learned only one thing by this trip.
The Mosser family had met their at-
tacker somewhere to the west of Clare-
more.

In Claremore on December 31. And
their bloody car abandoned near Tulsa,
only 27 miles away, on January 2. What
had happened in the interim? Where
had the Mossers been? :

The detectives didn’t know. They
could only hope that somehow, some-
where, the truth would be brought out
—the Mossers would be found, the
youth in the red shirt would be iden-
tified and captured.

But how?

Back at Tulsa, telephones had been
aa —— the officers’ absence.

call had come in from Wichita
Falls Texas, many miles south and
west of Tulsa. Wichita Falls police-be-
lieved they had found a trace of the
Mosser family on Sunday, December 31,
two days before the abandoned car was
discovered.

THAT afternoon a fairly new Chevro-
let coach with Illinois license plates
had pulled into the filling-station
operated by E. O. Cornwall. Two men
got out of the car and entered the sta-
tion itself, where Cornwall was talking
to Claude Skinner, a customer.

Suddenly, Cornwall told police later,
one of the two newcomers seized the
other and the two men grappled, strug-
gling across the tiny room.

“Help me!” one of the men cried.
“This fellow has a gun and he’s going
to kill me and. my family!”

However, before either Cornwall or
Skinner could move, the _ second
stranger jerked loose and pulled out a
gun. He forced the other man out and
into the car and they drove off. _.

In his truck, Skinner chased the
strange pair. He got close enough to
the Chevrolet to notice children in the
car, but soon it outdistanced the truck
and disappeared.

Back in the filling-station, the man

“Yes, Sir,” Jones allegedly said.

“You forgot to tell us that someone
went back and brushed dirt over the
blood in the road with a broken branch

of pine needles. Quite an elaborate
cover-up wasn’t it? Especially since
you contend the killing grew out of a
fight?” asked Robinson.

The youth’s gaze was on the floor. He
did not answer.

John Hightower was arrested at his
home near Bethany the next day by
Deputy Robinson. Confronted with
Jones’ purported confession: and the
bloodstained trousers ‘which fit him
with the snugness of a tailored cut,
Hightower confirmed Jones’ statement,
according to the officers. “Joe gave me
the piece of fence post. I hit Ellis when
I saw him draw out a knife,’ Robinson
claimed he said.

“What happened to that knife?”
asked Robinson.

“We threw it in a pond of water up
the road a ways.”

“We believe Ellis had quite a sum of
money on his person when he was killed,

who cried out for help had-lost his hat.

-Cornwall turned it over to the Wichita

Falls police and they saw that it bore
the label of a store in Decatur, Dlinois.

Decatur is not far from Atwood,
Illinois.

Was this man Mosser? Had he al-
most fought loose from a killer there
in Wichita Falls, only to be driven off
with his wife and children, to their
deaths?

If so, how did he get from Claremore,
Oklahoma, to Wichita Falls, Texas—
and how did his car get back to Tulsa,
shot-riddled and bloodsmeared and
abandoned?

Tulsa officers read this report from
Texas and puzzled over it. It might
turn the direction of their search for
the Mossers, but otherwise it meant
little. Dhe strange youth still was not
identified. The fate of the Mosser fam-
ily still was in doubt—and the search
for them was widened now instead of
narrowed.

Then, while. Graves was asking
Wichita Falls for the best description
available on the gunman, another re-
port was received, this one from Sheriff
Bob Turner in Oklahoma City.

“Maybe we've got something on this
Mosser case of yours,” Sheriff Turner
said. “Something really hot.”

This was the story Sheriff Turner
gave to the Tulsa police:

At one a. m. on the morning of Sun-
day, December 31, a.man named Lee
Archer had been driving through Lub-
bock, Texas, in his own car, on a
business trip. He spotted a hitch-hiker
carrying a duffle bag and, thinking he
was a serviceman, Archer slowed down
and picked him up.

That was a near-fatal mistake.

The hitch-hiker, a young man wear-
ing a red flannel shirt and with one
droopy eye, had pulled out a gun. He
held Archer up and took $85 and his
car keys.

Then, still at gunpoint, he forced
Archer into the trunk of the car and
drove off.

For miles and miles, hour after hour,
Archer crouched in that trunk while the
car bounced and swayed over the high-
ways. He had no idea how far he had
been taken, nor in what direction, nor
what would happen to him.

Finally, he smelled smoke, the acrid,
biting fumes of metal rubbing against
metal. He heard a tremendous rattling
beneath him. A bearing had burned
out in the car, he realized. It slowed
and came to a stop.

With a tool, Archer forced open the
lid of the trunk. Carefully, slowly, he
peered around. Daylight had come
and the car was parked by the side of a
lonely road in a territory he did not
recognize.

The young kidnaper was not in sight.

As quietly as he could, Archer slipped

though only five dollars was found.”

But Hightower denied robbing Ellis
and, officers said, claimed that they had
tried to make the slaying look like an
automobile crash because of their fear
of being punished.

The next morning, November 10,
twelve days after the slaying, murder
charges were filed against Jones and
Hightower. Five days later a Harrison
County grand jury returned indict-
ments charging murder with malice
against the two men and as this story
is written both await trial in the slay-
ing. Rodnique was cleared of all
suspicion, but in Carthage, Mack Wilby
awaits trial on charges of operating an
illicit still.

Police believe that Ellis’ phone calls
to Sheriff Akin were to notify him of
Mrs. Brumele’s child's jllness and to
summon a doctor.

The names of Ross Rodnique and
Mack Wilby are fictitious to conceal
the identity of persons innocently in-
volved in this investigation.

Read It First In
AL DETECTIVE STORIES

out of the trunk. Then, scrambling
and stooping low, he darted through
the bushes and trees, away from his car
and to the nearest telephone. There
ee Sheriff Turner in Oklahoma
City.

Sheriff Turner’s men found Archer’s
car, all right, parked where he had said
it would be, with a bearing burned out.

They found something else. In the
back of the car was the duffle bag the
kidnaper had been carrying when
Archer picked him up.

But the kidnaper was gone. Deputies
questioned Kermit Mackey, the farmer
who lived closest to Archer’s abandoned
car. He had seen the car pull up there,
he said, and a young man in a conspicu-
ous red shirt get out from behind the
wheel.

Another car came along the road
then, a blue Chevrolet with out-of-state
license plates on it and with several
children in the back seat, headed toward
Oklahoma City. Mackey saw the young
man raise his arm, thumb up, the Chev-
rolet stop, the young man climb into
it, and the car drive on.

The Mosser car probably, riding into
horror and death, with a red-shirted
monster now inside.

But Mackey had no way of knowing,
nor did Sheriff Turner’s deputies when
they questioned him. Mackey had
supposed that this young man was the
owner of the stalled car, that he’d had
trouble with it and that the occupants
of the blue Chevrolet were taking him
to a telephone or a garage.

‘TPORNER'S men, unknowing then of
course of the tragedy yet to come,
still had a kidnaping to solve. They
opened the duffle bag, hoping for some
clue to the identity of the man who
had left it there.

In it they found several articles of
men’s clothing, including a suit jacket
with a name stenciled in its collar as a
laundry mark—the name Cook.

In one pocket of that jacket they
found a sales slip, made out by an El
Paso, Texas, store, showing that a man
named W. E. Cook had purchased a 32
Colt automatic there.

another pocket they found a
photograph of three small children. It
was a studio portrait, not a snapshot,
and the name of the photographer was
on the back, with his address in Kirks-
ville, Missouri.

Sheriff Turner teletyped ahead ask-
ing officers to watch for a blue Chevro-
let with several children in it and a
young man w a red flannel shirt.
Then, in the hopes that this duffle bag
actually belonged to the kidnaper, he
wired authorities in E] Paso, Texas, and
Kirksville, Missouri, asking if any W. E.
Cook was known in either town.

Cook, he knew, might be an alias or
the coat might be stolen. So Sheriff


© said over the telephone.
-- Archer to identify them if we can.

Oklahoman, roused a few executives on
this Sunday and arranged. for the
tograph of the three children to be
ent by wirephoto to the office of the
ederal Bureau of Investigation in St.
; s. By telephone, he talked to
Gerald Norris, the FBI agent in charge
lin St. Louis, gave Norris the informa-
ition he had and asked if an effort could
be made to identify the photograph in
Kirksville and if the man who

could be traced or identified positively.
», All this, Sheriff Turner told the Tulsa
‘officers, had happened on Sunday.
Monday he had received an answer
“from Norris. This answer, of course,
was received one day before the Mosser

Pear had been found.

». The Kirksville photographer had
identified the children in the photo-
graph, and FBI men learned that these

‘children had a relative by the name of
' William E. Cook, Junior, who lived in

Joplin, Missouri.

Lee Boardman, the FBI agent in
charge in Kansas City, was notified and
he sped down to Joplin. William E.
Cook, Junior, he wired Sheriff Turner,

_ Was an ex-convict, a young man .24

years of age who had been released from
the Missouri State Penitentiary the
previous June after serving 43 months
of a five-year sentence for tampering
with an automobile. He had been in two
reformatories in Missouri on other

‘charges. On the fingers of his left hand

the letters H, A, R and D were tattooed,

- and police photographs of him were
available.

Because of Sheriff Turner’s case,
Boardman filed charges of unlawful

‘flight to avoid prosecution and of kid-
naping against Cook in a Federal court.

Cook’s home was in Joplin and his
father lived there. But he had left Jop-

lin some time before and no one knew

where he was. In California, some of

» his acquaintances believed.

ND that was all Sheriff Turner knew
when he telephoned the Tulsa of-

’ ficers on Wednesday, two days after he’d
' heard from Norris.

“Boardman has mailed me a couple
of police pictures of this Cook,” Turner
“We'll get

“But I figured you'd be interested.
“This fellow Cook, Archer says, has a
droopy eye and was wearing a red flan-

'- nel shirt. That’s the same description

you've got out on the man who was
seen near the Mosser car.

“Besides, Cook got into a blue Chev-
rolet, with kids in it. The Mosser car

. was a blue Chevrolet. It looks to me

eas SE

like Cook is the man you want—like he

_ was picked up by the Mossers right here

near Oklahoma City after he’d kid-

naped Archer. And somehow when he

got rid of the Mossers he doubled back
and left the car near Tulsa.”

It looked very much like that to the
Tulsa officers, too. The man who had
kidnaped Archer also was responsible
for what had happened to the five Mos-
sers—whatever that might be.
Detective Sergeants Ray Page and
Harold Haus of the Tulsa force rushed
to Oklahoma City to see at first hand
what Sheriff Turner had uncovered.
Another Tulsa officer hopped an air-
plane for Joplin to pick up a picture
of Cook, and bring it into Tulsa before
the other pictures in the mail could
arrive.

And the officers sat down to digest
this last bit of information.

Mossers had left their home in
Atwood, Illinois, on Thursday, De-
cember 28. Driving leisurely and un-
molested, they had reached Claremore,
Oklahoma, and possibly spent the night
there, on December 30. The morning
of December 31, Sunday, they had

‘eaten breakfast in a Claremore cafe and

then left, driving south and west toward
Oklahoma City.

Meanwhile, that very Sunday morn-
ing, a wild man with a .32 Colt and a
red flannel shirt had held up, robbed
and kidnaped Lee Archer in Lubbock,
Texas. He had fled north and east,
through Oklahoma City, almost to the
town of Luther, Oklahoma.

There he had burned out a bearing
in his stolen car. He got out, and waved

his hitch-hiker’s thumb.

And the Mossers went by, stopped,
‘picked him up.

Then, unquestionably at gunpoint,
they had driven on, south and west
again, backtracking for the droopy-

eyed youth. They had gone on to

Wichita Falls, Texas, where they were
seen in a filling-station.

The next chapter of this journey—
one that must have been filled with
horror and fright for the Mossers—was
still undisclosed, but somehow the Mos-
ser car had been turned around and
the youth with the red shirt had back-
tracked once more and wound up, alone,
in a bloodied, bullet-punctured car, near

Why? Why had he turned around
twice on his trail of kidnaping and
torture? Where were the Mossers?

And—was he really William E. Cook,
Junior, ex-convict and petty thief who

had tried to tell the world how hard he.

was by a tattoo on his hand?

In Tulsa, Pete Essley and the oil man
were shown the photograph of Cook as
soon as it arrived. Unhesitatingly, they
identified it.

‘So it was Cook.

William E. Cook, Junior, leaping sud-
denly from the obscurity of a petty
thief to the notoriety of a desperado.

William E. Cook, Junior, wanted on
suspicion of kidnaping, armed robbery,
flight to avoid prosecution—and not
one, but five homicides.

William E. Cook, Junior, with a 32.
Colt automatic burning a hole in his
pocket, a desperate man, a dangerous
man, a threat to everyone he might
meet, every kind-hearted motorist who
might stop to help a stranger with car
pan or to pick up a lonely hitch-

er.

ND meanwhile—what had he done

with the Mosser family, with

mother and father’ and three young
ones?

Chief Norman Holt of the Oklahoma
State Highway Patrol put his whole
force into the search for the bodies.

Arkansas and Texas authorities also
instituted search parties, and men and
boys swarmed over the countryside in
these states. All highways within 300
miles of Tulsa were blocked and officers
inspected every vehicle passing along
the roads. If Cook still were in this
region, he stood little chance to escape.

Meanwhile, police and FBI agents in
Joplin, Missouri, were watching the
hangouts of the ex-convict, in case he
should return to his home town.

And one other end of the investigation
was proceeding with rapidity miles
away. The investigation in El Paso,
Texas.

When Cook’s duffle bag had been
opened by Sheriff Turner’s men near
Oklahoma City, they had found a re-
ceipt for a .32 Colt automatic pur-
chased in an El Paso, Texas, store on
December 26 by W. E. Cook. El Paso
police and the FBI office in that city
were asked to try to trace him. With
his identification in the Mosser case
that request became urgent.

A photograph of Cook was shown to
the proprietor of the store and he iden-
tified it readily. But he didn’t know
anything about the man, where he came
from, who he was, where he might be
found.

The El Paso officers looked at all reg-
isters of hotels, rooming-houses and
motels for Christmas night and the
day following. Sure enough, at one
motel on the outskirts they found where
a W. E. Cook and a W. E. Pierce had
shared a double cabin on December 26.
They had given their address as Blythe,
California.

The motel owner recognized the pic-
ture of Cook, too. Pierce, he said, was
taller and dark-haired, older and had
been accompanied by his wife.

Another couple—also tourists.

Were they, too, dead?

But the trail of Cook pointed to
Blythe, California. Accordingly, FBI
Agent Ollie Nordmarkin, stationed at
Riverside, in Southern California, was
telegraphed a request to find out what
he could.

In Blythe was one of Riverside County
Sheriff Carl Rayburn’s far-flung desert
substations. To this station then, at

four p. m. on January 5, 1951, Agent
Nordmarkin put through a telephone
call, and by chance Deputy Sheriff
Homer Waldrip happened to answer.

The deputy, 27, was a husky officer,
a long-time resident of the district but
with only a month’s experience in the
sheriff’s office.

Nordmarkin explained what he
wanted, how the names of Pierce and
Cook had been obtained, and that he
had a telegraphic warrant for Cook’s
arrest. He described Cook as best he
could.

“That fellow Cook,” said Waldrip
thoughtfully, “sounds like a man named
Billy who’s been working in a cafe down
here. I’ll find out what I can.”

'HE restaurant Waldrip had in mind
was the Valley Cafe, one and a half
miles west of town on Highway No. 60.
The deputy’s wife, Cecelia, was em-
ployed there as a waitress.

Waldrip drove out to the cafe, only
to learn that the dishwasher named
Billy had left there on Christmas Day.
“He talked about hitching a ride back
to the Mid-West,” added the manager,
H. McDaniel.

“What was his full name?” asked the
deputy.

The manager consulted his records.
“William Edward Cook.”

“Happen to know a W. E. Pierce?”
asked Waldrip.

“Yes,” said McDaniel. “He’s a fel-
low who’s been working on Paul Riise’s
truck farm, five miles north. Riise and
his wife stay at Woods’ Motel here in
town. Ask them about Pierce.”

That was the total of the cafe own-
er’s information, and Deputy Waldrip
drove back and stopped at the motel
on Hobson Way. There hé inquired for
Paul Riise, and Woods pointed out a
small two-room stucco cabin.

“He lives there, but he’s gone to San
Bernardino for the day. He'll be back
tonight or tomorrow morning.” The
motel owner suggested that Waldrip
return next morning.

This the deputy did, and what he
found proved to be the turning-point
in the gigantic manhunt.

At ten a. m. on Saturday morning,
clad in dark green uniform and fully
accoutered with badge and gun, he
knocked on the door of Riise’s cabin.
There was a slight wait, then the door
swung inward.

And Waldrip found himself staring
into the black muzzle of an automatic
pistol.

The officer started. His glance trav-
eled upward and rested on the thick,
unsmiling features of the stocky youth
he had known as Billy Cook.

“Get in here!” ordered the gunman.

Waldrip didn’t have any choice but
to obey. Inside, with the gun muzzle
at his back, he was relieved of his 38
Smith and Wesson service revolver.

“Now,” said the youth, “we’re going
for a ride in your car. I can use that
red spotlight.”

With the gunman beside him, the
pistol muzzle in his side, the deputy
drove west on Highway No. 60. After
four miles they reached a side road
and Waldrip was ordered to turn south
on the rough, little-traveled dirt high-
way.

“Don’t try anything,” said Cook.
“T’ve killed seven people back in the
Mid-West. I hid the bodies pretty
carefully, too. Two men I stuffed into
@ snowbank. They won't be found till
Spring.”

‘He took a drink from a wine bottle.
“So, if you’re the eighth, I’ve got
nothing to lose.”

HEY shoved off into the desert si-

lence and when they had traveled
some 40 miles, they came to an oasis
called Middle Well, in Imperial County.

Cook raised his arm. “Stop. We're
getting out. Now, get your hands up.”

He took the deputy’s wallet and re-
moved the money, $130. Then he made
Waldrip tear strips off a blanket in
his car trunk. He marched the officer
to a dry arroyo, 100 yards east, and
hidden from view of the road.

“Stretch out, face down, on the
blanket,” he commanded. “I'll tie your
hands behind you.”

This done, he moved away. “Don’t

get up for half an hour,” he warned.
“Unless you want to be the eighth dead
man.”

Waldrip heard his car door slam
and the roar of the motor faded into
silence. Ten minutes later the deputy
had worked loose of the bonds and he
started walking back toward Palo
Verde. He had walked about six miles
when he met a car with two U.S. Bor-
der Patrol officers from Yuma.

They raced back south, hoping to
overtake Cook on the winding dirt road.
Two miles south of where Waldrip had
been tied, they came upon the sheriff's
car in the lonely road, the red spot-
light turned on.

The border patrol officers drew their
guns and warily circled the vehicle.
But when they closed in they found it
had been abandoned. Marks in the
sand, however, showed that another
car had turned around at this point
and had gone south.

Cook evidently had made good his
threat to flag down the first car he met,
and change vehicles.

On the two cars went, and four miles
north of the tiny village of Ogilby they
pulled to a quick stop. A young man
lay sprawled in the middle of the road.
He had been shot in the back and it was
evident he had been dead only a few
minutes.

“He’s the eighth, I guess,” said Wald-
rip grimly. “Let’s see who he is.”

They found no money in the dead
man's pockets but plenty of identifica-
tion. He was Robert H. Dewey, a sales-
man from Seattle, Washington. And
he had been driving a 1947 Buick sedan.

With one patrolman left to guard the
body, the other officer and Waldrip
raced into Ogilby and used the tele-
phone of a railroad section foreman.
They called first the Imperial County
sheriff’s substation at Winterhaven,
near Yuma, sixteen miles east.

From there the alarm was flashed to
the county seat of El Centro, 60 miles
west, where Sheriff Robert Ware's
deputies went into action. Through-
out the fertile Imperial Valley, with its
thousands of truck farms, road blocks
were set up. Cook was not far ahead.
Could he be captured?

Officers patrolled Highway No. 80.
The border city of Calexico-Mexicali,
south of El Centro, swarmed with men
of the Border Patrol. But strangely
enough, the Buick had not entered Mex-
ico at that point. Nor was it reported
seen along the roads or highways.

William Pierce and his wife were
found in Tucson, Arizona, but they
knew nothing of Cook's intentions.
They had left him at E) Paso.

“We hitch-hiked to El] Paso with him,
from Blythe,” said Mrs. Pierce. “When
we left him December twenty-eighth
he spoke of going to Florida.”

Meanwhile, FBI agents, deputy
sheriffs, police officers and border
patrolmen had converged on the Mexi-
can border. Houses were searched, all
cars were halted at road blocks. But in
some miraculous manner, the des-
perado eluded them.

E. C. Richardson, FBI agent in charge
of the San Diego area, moved his head-
quarters to the desert county seat of
El Centro to direct the manhunt for
Cook—one of the greatest in the na-
tion since the FBI tracked down John
Dillinger a dozen years before.

The chase became international. A
Mexican vaquero, riding in from a lonely
cattle ranch, saw a news picture of Cook
and told the FBI he had spotted the
man in the back seat of a maroon Stude-
baker sedan, with two men in the front
seat, heading toward the vast, barren
wastelands of the Laguna Saladas
Desert, west of Mexicali, in Baja
(Lower) California.

That the youthful gunman had
changed cars was verified the next day,
Sunday. The slain salesman’s Buick
was found abandoned 40 miles north
of the Mexican fishing village of San
Filipe. Tracks in the dirt beside it
showed that a light car had turned
around at that point.

The license led officers to the home
of Dewey, 31, in Seattle. His wife said
that her husband had been visiting his
parents in Spring Valley, California.
She said that he had a 22 rifle and a
shotgun with him.

63


COOK, William E., wh, asphyx

—

=>

Missourl
Massacre

Halfway Across the Continent, From
Joplin to Tulsa to Blythe, Calif., Led
The Trail of the Notorious William
Cook. How Many Bodies Would Dot
That Trail Before He Could Be Found?

By Charles Grayson

Special Investigator for
OFFICIAL DETECTIVE STORIES

HEN Deputy Sheriff Warren

Smith first saw the 1949

Chevrolet coach on the side

road, he was not greatly concerned. It

was 1:10 p.m., January 2, 1951, and the

Osage County, Oklahoma, officer pulled

up beside the machine. The car carried

Illinois license plates, he saw, and its

rear wheels were buried in the mud of
the roadside ditch.

Some tourist probably had pulled
off the highway to sleep, he thought,
and had backed into the ditch in the
darkness.

Believing that the driver might still
be sleeping and was unaware of the
mired wheels, Smith peered into the

car.

An instant later he had jerked open
the door. Both seats of the machine
were soaked with blood. Blood had
gathered in pools on the floor.

Had someone died in this car?

On the rear seat Smith found six
empty cartridge cases, and in the back
of the front seat three small holes
showed, apparently where bullets had
embedded themselves.

Quickly, Smith searched the car. On
the floor he found two Illinois driver’s
licenses and half a dozen traveler’s
checks. Various articles of clothing
littered the entire automobile.

Picking up the two driver’s licenses,
he saw that they had been issued to
Carl and Thelma Mosser of Atwood,
Illinois. The traveler’s checks had been
purchased by Cari Mosser.

But where were Carl and Thelma
Mosser? Shot to death and their
bodies hidden some place?

A set of keys dangled from the ig-
nition lock. Smith removed them and
after locking the Chevrolet, he hurried
to Tulsa, only a mile away. At Police
Headquarters, city officers and several
men, including an identification expert,
agreed to accompany Smith back to the
scene.

The finger-print man went over the
car with great care, but he shook his
head.

“Someone may have wiped this whole
thing clean,” he declared.

“There isn’t a sign of a print any-
where. Not even smudges.”

He dug into the holes Smith had dis-
covered in the back of the seat and
soon recovered three steel-jacketed bul-

lets, all of the slugs in good condition.

First towing the car to Tulsa, the men
examined it further. In the luggage
compartment they made another dis-
covery—as shocking as the condition
of the car itself.

In that luggage compartment were
several suitcases filled with clothing—
not only for a man and a woman, but
also for three children. Two boys and a

girl, judging from the sizes and the

clothes.
Three little children.

ye enormous, horrible implications
stunned these officers. They couldn’t
believe it—they refused to believe it.

A mother and father and three chil-
dren apparently had been traveling in
this car. Mother and father, and the
children, too, had disappeared. The
car had been abandoned, smeared with
an appalling amount of blood, with six
cases from discharged cartridges lying
loose on the back seat. ’

Had a whole family been wiped out?
Had three children, as well as both
parents, been shot to death, one after
another, slowly and callously?

“There’s got to be some simple ex-
planation for this,” Smith said, his own
voice betraying his disbelief. ‘Nobody
would slaughter a whole family.”

Captain Harry Stege, head of the
Tulsa Police Department Identification
Bureau, talled Atwood, Illinois. Atwood

is a small central Illinois village, and —

the Chief of Police there was personally
acquainted with the Mosser family.

“That certainly must be Carl Mosser’s
car, all right,” he told Captain Stege.
“They’re missing. They left here last
Thursday to visit Carl’s twin brother,
who’s 4 lieutenant in the Army. stationed
at Albuquerque. They have a blue
forty-nine Chevrolet coach. The
brother wired yesterday that Carl
hasn’t arrived. We're mighty worried
about them around here.”

Carl Mosser, he said, was 33 and his
wife, Thelma, 29. ‘Their three children
were Ronald Dean, seven, Gary Carl,
five, and Pamela Sue, three.

Definitely, the Mossers were missing.

Was it, then, really.a mass killing—
with five, or perhaps only four of this
family dead? If.so, where were the
bodies? Lying on a roadside someplace
between Tulsa and Atwood?

CA (Imperial) December 12, 1952

The end at last of one search. Spectators stare in horror into the
abandoned mine near Joplin, Missouri, with its five-body secret

As soon as he had finished talking
with the Illinois chief, Stege called the
radio stations in Tulsa. He told what
he had learned about the Mossers and
asked that all persons be requested to
report if they had seen the family.

Meanwhile, the blood in the car was
tested and proved to be human. The
three bullets had traces of human blood
on.them. This indicated that they
might have passed through a body be-
fore embedding themselves in the seat.
All of the slugs and shell cases were of
.32 caliber, from a Colt automatic.

The ballistics man also declared that
the weapon was in excellent condition.
“It might be a new one,” he asserted.

When he heard this, Stege ordered
that the gun records be checked to see
if a 32 Colt automatic had been pur-
chased in the city within the past year
or so. Tulsa has an ordinance which
requires all buyers of hand guns to put
their name, address and finger-prints
on a card furnished by the police. De-
tectives soon found that several .32 Colt
automatics had been sold in the city
within recent months, but in each case
the purchaser was above suspicion.

“It’s almost a cinch that the Mosser
family is dead,” Deputy Smith com-
mented. “And someone, somewhere be-
tween here and Mlinois, surely saw
these people. -We’ll have to make a
search for their bodies—they may not
be far from where that car was.”

Captain Stege agreed. “I'll call the
‘Highway Patrol and we'll get a crew
out there to look,” he said. He imme-
diately phoned the Patrol station just
‘ outside the city, and within 30 min-

utes, four state officers arrived at Po-
lice Headquarters. The patrolmen had
notified Tulsa County Chief Criminal
Investigator Ray Graves, and he drove
up with three of his men. This posse
was supplemented by five city detec-
tives, and they proceeded to the spot
where the Chevrolet had been parked.

The sheriffs of both Tulsa and Osage
Counties had promised aid, and the
men waited until these deputies got
there. They had enlisted a number of
citizens and the party was over 50
strong. :

Spread out in a long, thin line, the
searchers looked in every possible place
where they thought a body might be
hidden. They covered several miles,

OFFICIAL DETECTIVE, March, 1951

and the day passed, but they did not
find the slightest trace of the missing
family.

Where were the Mossers? Had they
really been killed?

Back in Headquarters at sundown,
Smith and Stege found an oil worker
awaiting them. He had an interesting
story to tell: “I was driving along that
road out there about nine this morning
when a young fellow hailed me. He
said his car was stuck in the mud and
he wanted a ride to where he could

phone for a er.

“T have a phy ola and I told him
he could use it. But he said he’d rather
go toa regular phone because he wanted
to get some cigarets and something to
eat. I took him to a drug store in Tulsa
and he went inside. I don’t know who
he was and I’m sure I never saw
him before.”

The stranger had been about 23 years
old, this man said with light, curly
hair and blue eyes. “I’d say he was five
feet six and had thick lips. I noticed
that his right eye: seemed to droop, al-
though he wasn’t squinting. He didn’t
talk much and he wasn’t in my car long
but he did seem to be nervous.”

"TFS being their first lead, the officers
asked numerous questions. Most im-
portant was how the man had been
dressed.

“He was wearing a bright red flannel
shirt, no hat, light-colored trousers and
a leather coat. I didn’t notice his
shoes,” the informant replied. He also
gave the location of the drug store
where the stranger had left his car.

Pete Essley, a rancher, also had seen
this.man near the Mosser car. He de-
scribed the youth exactly as the other
man had. Both these citizens had heard
the radio broadcast and had come to
Police Headquarters in response to the
appeal.

A new momentum had been added to
the case—a mysterious stranger. He
could not be Carl Mosser—he did not
conform in any way to Mosser’s descrip-
tion. He hardly would be a transient
just strolling past Mosser’s car—he’d
claimed it for his.

Was he the one person who could tell
police what had happened to the Mos-
ser family?

(Continued on Page 62)

49

From this. it was evident that Cook
had his pistol, Deputy Waldrip’s re-
volver, the rifle and the shotgun—a
heavy arsenal. And he was boasting
that he had killed eight persons.

Meanwhile, five of the known victims
had not been found. Five persons whom
Cook allegedly admitted slaying were
still missing, their bodies somewhere in
the vast Mid-West. The Mosser family.

The search for them grew and grew
in Oklahoma and Arkansas and Texas.

Nearly a week had passed since
Deputy Warren Smith had come upon
the blood-soaked auto near Tulsa.
Newly elected Governor Johnston Mur-
ray of Oklahoma proclaimed Sunday,
January 14, as “Search for Carl Mosser
Day” and when he heard this Governor
Sid McMath of Arkansas joined in the
move.

January 14, “Search for Carl Mosser
Day,” was a gloomy day, -rainswept,
with a chilly, biting wind. Thousands
joined the search for the missing fam-
ily but thousands more, officials esti-
mated, stayed home because of the
weather.

The Mosser family was not found.

In El Centro, California, Sheriff Ware
and FBI Agent Richardson talked it
over. “That maroon Studebaker,”
said the Sheriff, ‘“‘might have crossed
the border at Mexicali. If so, we can
find out the license number.”

Richardson agreed. ‘Lets see what
the immigration records show.”

The records disclosed that the day
before, a 1950 maroon Studebaker
sedan, with California license 86 A 2351,
had crossed into Mexico on Saturday.
A check of the license disclosed that
it had been issued to Forest Damron,
32, of El Centro. With a friend, James
Burke, 33, he had gone on a week-end
prospecting trip toward San Filipe.

Mexicali and Tijuana immigration
records showed this was the only
maroon Studebaker sedan that had
crossed the border. The question was:
Had Damron and Burke been stopped
by Cook and killed, like the others, or
were they still captives?

y=s was what really had happened:
On that Sunday of January 7, the two
young prospectors had been returning

to Mexicali, along the San Filipe high- |

way, when they had come upon a stocky
youth in leather jacket, standing be-
side a Buick sedan. The car was stalled
in the middle of the highway, facing
back toward Mexicali.

They pulled alongside on the rough,
help. road, and asked if they could

eip

“This car won't run,” replied the
youth. “I'll have to shove it off the
road and leave it. I’d like a ride.”

The three pushed the car to one side,
then the stranger transferred several
guns to the Studebaker.

In the back seat he spoke with an
abrupt sharpness. The two men looked
around. Their passenger had an auto-
matic in his hand.

“We're going to do a lot of driving,”
he ordered. “Don’t make one false
move or I'll let you have it. Stop at
the first gas station.”

Damron and Burke suddenly realized
whom they had picked up, and they
were certain he meant what he said.

Their only hope in staying alive was
to obey him. And even then—what?

When night came, he ordered the two
prospectors to pull off the road and
sleep as they had been sitting, in the
front seat. “If you make a sudden
move,” he warned, “I’ll shoot first and
find out about it afterward. If you
want to turn over when you're sleep-
ing, tell me first, then do it.”

Behind them Cook slept lightly as a
cat, stirring at every movement or
noise in the night. The automatic was
in his belt, the .22 rifle across his lap
with the hammer cocked.

The next day they stopped at a tiny
roadside village and bought some dried
meat and groceries. They built a camp-
fire on a stretch of beach and cooked
the food.

They moved on south, cooking over
open fires, buying gasoline whenever
they could.

But meanwhile the authorities were
positive that Cook was in Mexico—and
they were almost convinced that he had

64

stopped Damron and Burke. His pic-
ture was spread throughout Lower
California; radio stations took up the
cry for him with vigor.

For Cook and his two captives, the
roads became worse, and frequently
they had to turn out of the road when
meeting other cars, to let them pass.

Toward the end of the week they met
a car with two men in it.

They were Xavier Gonzales, pay-
master at a mine, and Jerry Grant, an
engineer of San Diego.

As they passed, Cook stuck his head
out the rear side window. ‘

“How’s the road ahead? As bad as
we've been over?”

And Gonzales recognized him.

His mouth dry, hands trembling,
Gonzales tried to be nonchalant.

“It gets better and worse in spots,”
he said.

The Studebaker went on by.

When they were safely away, Gon-
zales whistled softly. “That,” he told
Grant, “was Cook, the killer.”

“Then. it’s our lucky day,” replied
Grant in amazement.

On Saturday night the two men
reached Tijuana and at once the¥ re-
ported the chance meeting to Police
Chief Francisco Kraus Morales.

The Chief brought out a news photo
of Cook. “Is this the man?

Gonzales and Grant made instant
identification.

That night Morales made prepara-
tions to go after the fugitive. He picked
Police Officer Antonio Canales and Jose
Navarro, personal pilot to Governor Al-
fonso Garcia Gonzales of the Baja,
California, northern district, to ac-
company him.

AVARRO flew Chief Morales and

Canales toward Santa Rosalia early
Sunday morning in the governor’s four-
place private plane. They barely
skimmed the highway, studying each
car on the road through binoculars,
searching for the maroon sedan.

They landed at the little airport of
San Ignacio, and there the hunters first
cut across the wanted man’s trail. They
found a filling station attendant who
said he had serviced the maroon sedan.

The officers flew on, landing at Cal-
malli, at El Marmol, and at Punta
Prieta.

Here they again found a trace of the
quarry, when a cafe owner’ identified
Cook’s picture.

The afternoon before, Cook and his
captives had reached the little copper-
mining town of Santa Rosalia, on the
Gulf Coast, and they camped on the
near-by beach. The next day, Sunday,
January 14, the gunman ordered them
to rest, and they loafed around the car
in the hot Winter sunshine.

“Can't we go into town,” Burke
asked, “and get something to eat?”

“Do you think we could find some-
thing?” asked Cook. .

“Sure,” Damron said. - “Some res-
taurants will be open and we can have
@ good meal.”

Cook thought it over. “Okay,” he
said. “let’s go in: Just remember what
I told you, about not trying anything.
T’ll have two guns.”

They drove in and found a cafe that
was open for business. They sat down
and ordered fried chicken.

And for the first time in any of the
cafes they had entered, Cook sat with
his back to the door. .

Less than a mile away, Jose Navarro
landed at the Santa Rosalia airport,
just as Cook and his two captives were
ordering their food.

“We shall visit the cafes first,” Chief
Morales said. “Even a bandit like this
one must eat.”

THAT was. Sunday, January 14, in
Baja California, Mexico.

At approximately the same time,
more than 1,000 miles away, a young
man walked into Police Headquarters
in Joplin, Missouri, where authorities
were maintaining a close watch for
William Cook.

“Maybe I got something for you on
this Mosser family,’ he said.

He was brought in to see Police Chief
Frank Martin and Detective Chief Nutt.

“I was in the pen with Cook,” this

_ young man said. “I got out before he

did.

“Last Summer, when Bill first got
out of the big house, he wanted me to
help him in some hold-ups. I turned
him down and he threw a gun on me.
He marched me to the old Lee Hall
mine shaft out on West Fourth Street
and he said he was going to throw me
in the shaft. He said he already killed
one man and tossed him in that mine.

“Maybe that’s where he put the Mos-
sers. I dunno, but it ought to be worth
lookin’ into.”

The two officers drove to the old mine
with Detective Walter Gamble. The
place had been abandoned for 45 years
and the shaft was covered with heavy
boards—which obviously had been dis-
turbed recently. The 180-foot hole was
filled to within 30 feet of the surface
with water.

Throwing a flashlight beam into the
opening, the men recoiled at what they
saw. Floating in the black water were
the bodies of at least three persons.

The Mossers had been found at last.

N HOUR JIater, City Fireman Henry

Cook was lowered into the depths
and he soon removed the bodies of a
man, woman and three small children.
Fireman Cook, who is not related to
the outlaw, again descended into the
shaft, but he found nothing else.

Coroner W. W. Hurst was called and
he examined the dead. The hands of
all five had been tied with bits of a
towel and all had been shot to death.
The Coroner estimated that they had
been dead at least two weeks.

Lieutenant Mosser arrived within an
hour by plane and identified the bodies
as those of his brother and family.

The long search for the Mossers was
over—and it had ended as the Tulsa
police had feared it would end, with
five bullet-filled bodies. .

Somehow, Cook had taken the Mos-
sers south and west to Wichita Falls,
perhaps beyond. Then he had doubled
back and made his way to Joplin. En
route, perhaps in Texas, Oklahoma,
Arkansas or Missouri, the Mossers had
been wiped out, their bodies dumped in
the abandoned mine shaft.

Then Cook had gone on, driving to
Tulsa where he had mired the Mosser
car, the blood in it still warm, and pro-
ceeding from there, no one knew how,
to his new trail of terror and kidnap-
ing and even more death in Texas
and California and Mexico.

Who would be next in this frighten-
ing saga, this journey of horror?

Damron and Burke?

Even as Fireman Cook brought out
the first body in Joplin, Missouri, Des-
perado Cook brought out his wallet in
Santa Rosalia, Mexico, and paid for
the dinner he and Damron and Burke
had eaten.

The meal was over. They were about
to leave.

But, peering in the front door, Chief
Morales saw ‘

Morales loosened his gun in its hol-
ster and beckoned to his men.

“There he is! Navarro, take the back
door. Canales, guard the front. I’ll.go
in alone.”

A minute later, Damron and Burke
glanced up to see the Chief walk in the
door, a gun in-his hand.

This was it! ~

Cook, they were sure, would not be
taken alive. He would get to his feet
with both guns blazing.

And they were right in the line of
fire. Thus they sat, scarcely daring to
breathe. While Chief Morales walked
softly across the floor toward their
table.

Then he leaned forward and shoved
his gun muzzle into Cook’s back.

“Get your hands up!”

Cook stiffened. His right hand
darted, like a fast-striking snake, for
the gun in his waistband.

“Do not do that!” Morales said.
“You will not live!”

Cook’s shoulders sagged. ‘‘Okay,” he
replied.

MORALES lifted the killer’s guns.
Navarro and .Canales ran in and
snapped handcuffs on the desperado.
And Burke and Damron shook the
officers’ hands.
Cook was captured.

The two-nation, 1,000-mile trip of
terror was over.

The ‘fugitive slayer refused to talk.
He was held that Sunday night in the
little Santa Rosalia jail, while word was
flashed to the outside world of his cap-
ture. Back in El Centro, Mrs. Dorothy
Damron and Mrs. Vivian Burke cried
with sheer happiness.

On Monday, January 15, the surly
fugitive was flown back to Tijuana
where a huge crowd thronged the Cali-
ente airport, waiting to see him. The
Mexican police wasted no time on form-
alities. Declaring that Cook was an
undesirable alien, without a visa, they
walked him to the border and into the
hands of FBI agents, who rushed him to
San Diego.

His manacled hands shaking, his
heavy-lidded eyes drooping from lack
of sleep, he answered all questions in a
quavering voice: “I don’t remember
killing anyone.”

On Wednesday, January 17, 1951, the
Department of Justice in Washington,
D. C., ended speculation concerning the
stubby gunman’s trial. U. S. District
Attorney Ernest Tolin in Los Angeles
was directed to return Cook to the
— of Federal authorities in Okla-

oma.

T= full story was told in Joplin, Mis-
souri, where the greatest atrocity
had occurred. Lee , the FBI
agent from Kansas City, drove to Jop-
lin and after a conference with Joplin
police, announced that Cook had con-
fessed killing the Mossers and also kill-
ing Dewey in California.

According to this confession, Board-
man said, Cook admitted kidnaping
Archer in Lubbock, Texas, and driving
just beyond Oklahoma City, where
Archer’s car burned out a bearing.
Cook then hitch-hiked a ride with the
Mosser family, leaving Archer locked
in the trunk of his car.

At gunpoint, Boardman quoted him
as confessing, he forced the Mossers to
drive back through Oklahoma City to
Wichita Falls, Texas—where Mosser al-
most broke loose—and on to Carlsbad
Caverns, New Mexico. There Mosser
made another futile attempt to break
loose and, angered, Cook forced him to
turn around and drive all the way back
to Joplin, Missouri.

He promised to release the Mosser
family in Joplin, Boardman said he ad-
mitted. But at two a. m. on a lonely
Joplin street, a police car passed the
Mosser auto and flashed a light on it.
Frightened, the Mosser. children
screamed, and the slaughter followed,
Boardman claimed. Cook then alleg-
edly dumped the bodies into the mine
shaft and drove west again, to Tulsa,
esp he mired the Mosser car and left

t.

Somehow—he wouldn’t tell—Cook
had made his way back to Blythe then,
“rea Deputy Sheriff Waldrip found

After talking to Boardman, Chief
Martin of the Joplin force called in all
men who had been on duty the morning
of January 2. And sure enough, Patrol-
men Nathan Keaton and Floyd Cline
remembered seeing a car parked on
Maiden Lane near Thirtieth Street, with
Illinois license plates, some time after
1:30 a. m.

They put a light on the car, Cline
said, but noticed that it contained chil-
dren and drove on.

That, Martin believed, must have
been the police car Cook allegedly had
mentioned in his confession.

Eight victims? The FBI believes that
Cook was boasting. He killed only six,
they claim, the Mossers and Dewey,
and he kidnaped four others.

In Oklahoma City, United States Dis-
trict Attorney Robert E. Shelton went
‘before the grand jury and on Wednes-
day, January 24, Cook was indicted for
kidnaping.

Prosecuting Attorney Dale Tourtelot
of Jasper County said in Jo~lin that he
would file five charges of murder
against Cook there and ask for his
extradition to Joplin. Imperial] County,
California, too, issued a warrant for
Cook for the slaying of Dewey.

As this issue of OFFICIAL DETEC-
TIVE STORIES goes to press, final
legal steps against Cook are pending.

Se


claim on behalf of the state that it consti-
tutes an admission of lying in wait to com-
mit murder.”) Since there was evidence
that Elvira was killed in order to perpetrate
rape the trial court properly instructed upon
that theory of murder, although there seems
to be no evidence which would support a
finding that the killing of Earlean was first
degree murder in perpetration of rape, for
defendant stated that “she didn’t object to
anything I did to her,” and the condition of
her body did not indicate that she had been
the victim of violent rape or attempted rape
(see People v. Craig (1957), 49 Cal.2d 313,
318-319 [2a-2b], 316 P.2d 947; cf. People
v. Brown (1943), 22 Cal.2d 752, 755 [1, 2],
141 P.2d 1). The question whether there
could be a finding of rape-murder of Ear-
lean under the rule that “Rape is an act of
sexual intercourse, accomplished [where the
victim] * * * is prevented from resist-
ing * * * by any intoxicating * * *
substance, administered by or with the priv-
ity of the accused” (Pen.Code, § 261, subd.
4) is not presented, for the jury were not
instructed as to the situation where the ac-
cused avails himself of the drunkenness of
the victim to commit rape. (See Code Com-
missioners’ Note to Pen.Code (1872), § 261,
subd. 4.)

Prior to trial defense counsel moved to
inspect all statements in the possession of
the People, including any statements made
to the police by seven persons who had
testified at the preliminary hearing in the
case against John Fry, These persons had
been mentioned in the present case in a
police inspector’s testimony before the
grand jury but they had not been witnesses
before the grand jury. Defense counsel
had a copy of the transcript of the prelimi-
nary hearing in the Fry case. He said,
“(There is a person who, although at one
time he testified under oath in the matter
of John ry, * * * thereafter he clabo-
rated greatly in that particular matter to
the effect, as I understand the testimony
before the Grand Jury by the police Inspee-

tor, that this person claimed to be an eye-

witness to that homicide.” (Defendant in

“156 : 3 CALIFORNIA REPunis&R

his opening brief.says, and the trial court
could have understood, that such person,
who is not identified by name, assertedly
stated that he saw Fry kill Elvira.)

The trial court ordered that statements of
defendant himself be produced. As to the
motion to inspect statements of other per-
sons, the court said, “There is some limita-
tion in obtaining the information that the
District Attorney accumulates”; otherwise,
“you would end up with the District Attor-
ney just accumulating all the information
and presenting it to the jury * * *
There could be very little reason for the
Public Defender’s Office or defense counsel
to do much preliminary work other than
appear at trial and maybe. cross-examine
the witnesses. * * * [T]he principal
purpose * * * of the decisions [concern-
ing pretrial discovery, hereinafter cited] is
to make available to defense counsel any
statements of individuals for impeachment
purposes at the trial. * * * And at this
stage of the case I would deny you the
use of the statements, if any, * * * of
these other individuals, however, with a
reservation that if any of these individuals
are put on the stand by the prosecution
that at that time you may have any state-
ment that is contained in the files of the
District Attorney of the individuals put on
the stand, and certainly with. ample time to
examine the statements and to prepare your
cross-examination.”

Defense counsel said, “[T]hese  state-
ments * * * are also required in order
to properly prepare the defendant’s case
herein.” The trial court pointed out that
defense counsel could interview and sub
poena these persons whose statements were
sought.

Of the seven persons who had testified
at Iry’s preliminary hearing, three testified
at defendant's trial: Mattie Williams (who
discovered IIvira’s body), John Jones (who
observed the altercation between Fry and
Elvira preceding her death), and Mrs. Ad
ams (who observed defendant in Earlean’s
room shortly before her death). The pros-
ecution furnished defendant with a sum-

EP em Re tg

mary
fenda:
Staten
duced
made
spect
renew
is imi
time o
prepar
ly be s
timony
would
This
(1959),
though
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such a
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cent an
quest fe
ficient ¢
granted

Thus
duction
to be 7
(Funk y
423, 340
(1958)"
And “to
statemen!
fendant
iS any in
and the |
Ordinari!
statement
until he }
were ac
his right
highly fo
tailed kn
statement
52 Cal.2d

Also th
Prior to i
ames ank


elie SNe LOR i ST ssacemcaceeaccemeniaeelae

PEOPLE v. COOPER 157
Cite as 3 Cal. Rptr. 148

mary of Mattie Williams’ statement. De-
fendant did not renew his request that the
statements of the other witnesses be pro-
duced. He urges that upon the showing
made by him prior to trial his right to in-
spect was “absolute”; that his failure to
renew his demand for inspection at the trial
is immaterial because “production at the
time of trial cannot aid a defendant in the
preparation of his case since it can certain-
ly be safe to say that a witness whose tes-

timony might damage a prosecutor’s case

would never be called by him.”

This court said in Cash v. Superior Court
(1959), 53 Cal.2d —, 346 P.2d 407, “[A]I-
though there is a possibility that a defend-
ant [who seeks pretrial disclosure] may be
acting in bad faith and may be secking
merely to acquire advance knowledge of
the details of the prosecution’s case with a
view to shaping his defense accordingly,
such a possibility is subordinate in import-
ance to the danger of convicting the inno-
cent and does not warrant denying a re-
quest for production where there is a suf-
ficient showing that the request should be
granted in the interests of a fair trial.”

Thus this court has required pretrial pro-
duction of statements of persons expected
to be prosecution witnesses at the trial.
(Funk v. Superior Court (1959), 52 Cal.2d
423, 340 P.2d 593; Vance v. Superior Court
(1958), 51 Cal.2d 92, 93 [1], 330 P.2d 773.)
And “to obtain production of the prior
statement of a prosecution witness, a de-
fendant is not required to show that there
is any inconsistency between the statement
and the testimony of the witness. * * *
Ordinarily a defendant cannot show that a
statement contains contradictory matters
until he has seen it, and, if such a showing
were a condition precedent to production,
his rights would be dependent upon the
highly fortuitous circumstances of his de-
tailed knowledge as to the contents of the
statement.” (People v. Chapman (1959),
$2 Cal.2d 95, 338 P.2d 428.)

Also the prosecution has been compelled,
prior to trial, to disclose to defendant the

names and addresses of eyewitnesses to the

alleged crime, to refrain from interfering
with defense counsel’s right to interview
witnesses, and to make available to him real
evidence or, when necessary, reports of the
state’s experts concerning the results of
their examination of real evidence. (Nor-
ton v. Superior Court (1959), 173 Cal.App.
2d 133, 343 P.2d 139; Schindler v. Su-
perior Court (1958), 161 Cal.App.2d 513,
520 [6, 7], 327 P.2d 68; Walker v. Su-
perior Court (1957), 155 Cal.App.2d 134,
139-141 [4-6], 317 P.2d 130.)

[7,8] Here, however, no error in denial
of pretrial inspection appears. The court
properly denied the blanket request that the
prosecution turn over to defense counsel all
the statements which it had. Although the
defendant does not have to show, and in-
deed may be unable to show, that the evi-
dence which he seeks to have produced
would be admissible at the trial (People v.
Chapman (1959), supra, 52 Cal.2d 95, 338
P.2d 428; Walker v. Superior Court (1957),
supra, 155 Cal.App.2d 134, 141, 317 P.2d
130), he does have to show some better
cause for inspection than a mere desire for
the benefit of all information which has
been obtained by the People in their investi-
gation of the crime.

[9] Nor does defendant show that de-
nial of his request for statements, if any, of
the seven named witnesses who testified at
Fry’s preliminary hearing was either er-
roncous or prejudicial. Although defense
counsel had a transcript of the testimony of
these persons and had opportunity to inter-
view them, so far as the record discloses
his only attempt to show to the trial court
that any statement of these persons had
any significant bearing on the preparation
of his defense to the charge of killing I:1-
vira was his assertion that one of them, not
identified by name, after he testified in
Fry’s case, had made a further statement to
the police in which he “elaborated greatly”
and “claimed to be an eyewitness” to the
killing. The trial court at this time had

- available to it the information contained in

the transcript of the testimony before the
grand jury in defendant’s case (which in-

eect) SS ee
ie ars :

Af

ove

e in
‘lude
* de-

nnot

eO.

(1]),

PEOPLE v. COOPER | 155
Cite as 3 Cal.Rptr. 148

264 P.2d 532. Significantly available to
prevent the drawing of inferences that de-
fendant was so disordered by his use of
intoxicants that he did not form the spe-
cific intent to kill as a result of delibera-
tion and premeditation are his accounts of
his slow and surreptitious preparations to
strangle his victims without their becoming
aware of his purpose and of his subsequent
time-consuming activitics designed to in-
sure their deaths, as well as his detailed
descriptions (sce People v. Murphy (1934),
supra, at page 40 [2] of 1 Cal.2d at page
637 of 32 P.2d; People v. De Moss (1935),
4-Cal.2d 469, 473 [2], 50 P.2d 1031), which
correspond with the testimony of prosecu-
tion witnesses, of events in Earlean’s room
before her death and of the condition in
which he left the bodies and his room.

[6] Defendant complains that by in-
structing the jury as to murder in the per-
petration of or attempt to perpetrate rape

2, “All murder which is perpetrated by
means of poison or lying in wait, torture
or by any other kind of wilful, deliberate
and premediated killing, or which is com-
mitted in the perpetration of [or] an
attempt to perpetrate arson, rape, rob-
bery, burglary, mayhem or any act pun-
ishable under Section 288 of the Penal
Code, is murder of the first degree, and
all other kind{s] of murder are of the
second degree.

“Murder which is committed in the per-
petration or attempt to perpetrate arson,
rape, robbery, burglary, mayhem or any
act punishable under Section 288 of the
Penal Code is murder in the first degree,
whether the killing was intentional, unin-
tentional or accidental.

“Rape is an act of sexual intercourse
accomplished with a female person, not
the wife of the perpetrator, where she re-
sists but her resistance is overcome by
foree or violence and [sic] where she
is prevented from resisting by threats of
great and immediate bodily harm, ac-
companied by apparent power of her as-
sailant to carry out and execute such
threats.

“An attempt to commit a crime consists
of two elements, namely: a specifie in-
tent to commit the crime, and a direct but
ineffectual act done toward its commis-
sion.

“In determining whether or not such an
act was done, it is necessary to distin-

the trial court in effect informed them,
erroneously and prejudicially upon defend-
ant’s view of the record, that there was
sufficient evidence of rape to permit a find-
ing of first degree murder on either or both
counts on that theory. The instructions
on this subject are quoted in the margin.*
Also the prosecuting attorney had referred
to the subject in argument to the jury

A determination that the killing of Elvira
was murder in the perpetration of rape by
violence could follow logically from accept-
ance of defendant’s account of that killing;
the jury could (although they did not have
to) believe that in admitting that he intend-
ed to and did “rape” her defendant used
that word in its legal meaning. (Cf. People
v. Thomas (1945), supra, 25 Cal.2d 880, 890
[3], 156 P.2d 7, where a defendant’s admis-
sion that he “laid in wait to catch” his vic-
tim “as a matter of law * * * does not
on its face and in its context justify the

quish between mere preparation, on the
one hand, and the actual commencement
of the doing of the criminal deed, on the
other. Mere preparation, which may
consist of planning the offense or de-
vising, obtaining. or arranging the means
for its. commission, is not sufficient to
constitute an attempt; but acts of a per-
son who intends to commit a crime will
constitute an attempt where they them-
selves clearly indicate a certain unam-
biguous intent to commit that ‘specific
crime, and, in themselves, are an immedi-
ate step in the present execution of the
criminal design, the progress of which
would be completed unless interrupted by
some circumstance not intended in the
original design.”

3. “Murder of the first degree is that type
of murder or killing which occurs in the
commission of certain felonies such as
robbery, rape, arson, burglary. There
are about six of them. The only one
which would be pertinent in this case
would be the crime of rape. If a mur-
der is committed, or a killing is com-
mitted, in the commission of a felony,
such as rape, or in the attempt to com-
mit a rape, it is murder of the first
degree under our law, whether that kill-
ing was intentional, unintentional, or ac-
cidental.”

mA

te.
os i ee
5 SE ei

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.

158 - 3 CALIFORNIA REPus1 ik

cluded the testimony of defendant and Fry)

and the reports of the doctors who ex-

amined defendant in connection with de-
fendant’s plea of not guilty by reason of
insanity, and therefore it presumably knew
that defendant had repeatedly admitted that
he killed Elvira in the absence of any other
person. Defendant does not suggest and
it does not appear that he might have pro-

posed as a defense a claim that anyone oth-:

er than he killed Elvira. Therefore, it does
not appear how further investigation into
the Fry matter could have aided defend-
ant in preparation of his case.

[10] The trial court was also entitled to
consider, as bearing on the strength or
weakness of defendant’s claimed “showing”
(actually, merely an assertion) that he
needed the statements to prepare for trial,
the facts that defendant was indicted on
June 11, 1959, that on July 29, 1959, trial
was sect for August 10, and that not until
July 31 did defendant present his motion
that the prosecution be required to furnish
these statements.

Nothing developed at the trial to indicate
that the refusal to require pretrial inspec-
tion of statements harmed defendant.
When Mattie Williams testified, the prose-
cution had furnished defense counsel with a
summary of her previous statement. When
Mrs, Adams and John Jones were called as
witnesses defendant, as stated, did not re-
new his motion for production of their
statements, which the trial court had previ-
ously assured him would be granted if they
were called. Furthermore, Mrs. Adams did
not testify to anything which had to do
with the killing of Elvira and Jones did not
testify to anything which had to do with
defendant. If they had knowledge of mat-
ters to which they did not testify at de-
fendant’s trial, defendant had opportunity

to discover it by interviewing them before

trial and to make a showing that he needed
their statements as to such knowledge, if
any.

The trial judge conducted the trial, and
counsel for each party presented his case,
with commendable fairness and dignity. In

the present state of the law it appears that
the jury’s solution of defendant’s and the |
People’s problems is proper, and that no,
ground exists upon which we may interfere
with the due process of the law to which |
both the People and the defendant are enti- |

tled.

Tor the reasons above stated, the judg. |
ment and order appealed from are affirmed. |

GIBSON, C. J., and TRAYNOR}
SPENCE, McCOMB, PETERS | and|
WILITE, JJ., concur. ;

° KEY RUMBER SYSTEM

anms

John Hunley ABBOTT, Appellant,
v.

CITY OF LOS ANGELES et al.,
Respondents. '

L. A. 25657.

Supreme Court of California,
‘ In Bank.
Feb. 26, 1960.

Rehearing Denied March 23, 1960.

Action for delaratory and injunctive re.
lief. The Superior Court, Los Angeles |
County, Newcomb Condee, J., entered judg.
ment for defendants, and plaintiff appealed. |
The Supreme Court, Peters, J., held that |
Los Angeles criminal registration ordinance

was unconstitutional as an attempt to legis-
late in a field already pre-empted by state.

Judgment reversed and cause remand:
ed with directions. }

1. Municipal Corporations C12]

Either injunction or declaratory re
lief is available for purpose of determining
constitutionality of ordinance.

2. Municipal Corporations C=592(1)

Los Angeles criminal registration or- |
dinance was unconstitutional as an attempt |
to legislate in a field already pre-empted
by state. West’s Ann.Const. art. 11, § Il

3. Muni

Po
providi
force |
ulations
is not o
to local.

Jocal bo:

4. Munic
Cit
matters

5. Munic

Wh
tempted
State moe
both, do
legislati

Const. ai

6. Munic
Wh
fully occ
er than 1
hidden,

7. Munici
Rul
state has
sity, bas.
ulations
ty and cc
HT, § 11,

8. Munici
Whe

_ exclusion

only upot
upon pu
scheme.

9. Munici;

By e¢
some inst.
ing it in
clusion o!
tration as
nals, = \'
et seq., 11
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-_He turned their heads

-’ with phony promises,
chopped them off
whan: they learned
the awful truth

by Miguel Lopez Pontes:

Ȣ & A RIVERMAN and commercial fisherman, Tod Dover
~ never missed a chance to salvage something usable. He’d
first seen the package floating in the waters of Steamboat
: Slough, an inlet of California’s Sacramento River, on
~ June 18th, but it vanished from view before he could fish
‘it out. Three days later, he saw it again.

His interest aroused, he turned his boat in the direction
of the object. :

Bringing the small craft alongside the object, which ap-
* peared to be a cloth-covered bundle a little over two feet
in length, he reached out with a boat hook and pulled it
toward him. It seemed heavy and compact, rising sluggishly
each time the pressure of his pole submerged it.

_ Abruptly, as he became aware of a peculiar odor, he
_ stopped and stared suspiciously at the bundle. Then he
reached down, ‘caught hold of the cord that bound it, and
- hauled it into the boat.

Wondering what could be inside a parcel of that size and
~.. weight, he removed several loops of insulated electric wire,
©. unwrapped two muddy, dark gray blankets, and then stood
‘staring in horror at the thing he had uncovered.

It was the torso of a woman, with the head, arms and
legs missing.

Dover turned the boat around and roared off at full
engine speed toward Courtland, two and a half miles away.
_ Arriving there, he telephoned ‘the sheriff’s office at Sacra-
mento, 20 miles upstream.

Undersheriff Harry Knoll, Deputy Sheriff John McVeigh,
and Deputy Coroner Louis McGinnis responded,

McGinnis examined the corpse and estimated that it had
been in the water two weeks or more. The head had been
cut off near the shoulders; the arms and legs at the sockets.
There were no discernible wounds, nor were there any
‘other noticeable marks or deformities of an identifying
nature.

Knoll and McVeigh suspected that the body had drifted
» into the cove from the main channel of the river. The mur-
_der scene might be near by, but since the water was high
at that time of year, they believed the strong current
- might have carried the corpse many miles downstream, per-
’ haps from some distant point on one of the several rivers
* that empty into the Sacramento.

’ The deputy coroner removed the corpse to the county
_ Morgue.

Knoll and McVeigh, aided by Deputies Charles Hammett,
George Munizich and other officers, searched along the
banks of the river and questioned some 15 families of
“fishermen and ranch workers, but without uncovering any

clues to the mystery.

ARLY the next day, dragging operations were begun
in Steamboat Slough—an onerous, unpleasant job,

Meanwhile, a report of the discovery was sent out over

the teletype system. It gave the approximate measurements

NET POLICE DRAGNET

He said she left him during trip to Arizona.

\
X

of the victim, together with a general description based on
the findings ‘of the county pathologist, This information
was also given to the newspapers.

' According to the autopsy report, the woman was prob-
ably a brunette about 28 years old, 5 feet 4 in¢hes tall and
weighing around 120 pounds. The cause of her death could
only be conjectured, but an analysis of the vital organs was
being made.

The dismembering had been done crudely, the slayer
using a hatchet or other chopping instrument to complete
his frightful handiwork.

Missing Persons failed to furnish any leads,

The toxicologist reported that he could find no trace of
poison in the stomach or other organs of the victim. With
the cause of death still undetermined, the body was buried
in the county cemetery.

After several days, the dragging operations ended in

complete failure, no sign of the missing head or limbs hav-

ing been found.

Sheriff Don Cox labeled the case the most baffling Sacra-
mento crime since 1930, when another “torso murder,”
still unsolved, had occurred there.

McVeigh, who was in charge of the investigation, worked
tirelessly to uncover some clue to the victim’s identity, He
spent long hours questioning persons along the river front,
hoping to locate the place where the slayer had butchered
his victim.

In spite of all his efforts, no progress was made until
July 13th,

25

en

shee aha Basaran Re a oe

creme hex

ne ere ETEES pre IT ~

Official (r.) studies grisly handiwork
of mild-looking monster (I.), who lured
victim to home with phony promises.

On that date, a yachting party of socially prominent
men and women discovered what they thought must be
the leg of a show-window dummy floating in Steamboat
Slough. .

Upon examining it, however, they were shocked to find
that it was actually a human leg.

They towed it to shore and notified Constable Walt
Goodman of Courtland, who called the sheriff’s office.

McVeigh and Deputy Coroner Jack Lavelle hurried to
the scene. The discovery raised their hopes of finding the
victim’s head, which would improve their chances of estab-
lishing her identity.

But although the county autopsy surgeon reported that
the leg, which had been hacked off near the hip, was un-

_ doubtedly from the torso previously found, renewed drag-

ging operations were unsuccessful and finally the search
was abandoned.

Weeks went by, each passing day making the case look
more hopeless.

_ Six months after Dover had made his grisly discovery,
the investigation was stalled for lack of clues, and it seemed
that it was destined to take its place among the unsolved
enigmas of criminal history,

26

McVeigh still hoped for some kind of break in the case,

. but he was forced to admit that even if the head and re-

maining limbs were yet recovered it would now be next
to impossible to identify the victim.

The public had all but forgotten the case when, on De-
cember 22nd, 17-year-old Angelo Pellegrini went rabbit-
hunting along the bank of the American River near his
home in Sacramento, About a mile and a half downstream
from the H Street Bridge, he noticed something lying in
some brush in the shallow water near the shore.

Approaching the water’s edge, he studied the object and
gradually recognized part of a human form, including an
outflung arm.

Without pausing for a second look, he ran home and
telephoned the sheriff’s office.

A party of investigators led by Knoll .and McVeigh,
accompanied the youth to the scene and found the headless,
legless corpse of a woman.

She was evidently a girl in her early twenties, with a
slim, shapely figure of medium height. There were no dis-
tinguishing marks on her body, but the slayer had failed
to remove a gold mesh bracelet from her left wrist.

Her head and legs had been hacked off exactly as in the

POLICE DRAGNET

Rig

Killer shows cops where he dropped torso.

previous murder, which led to the belief that the same
killer had disposed of both bodies. Evidently he had started
to remove her arms as in the case of his other victim, for
there were knife cuts along her left armpit.

A preliminary investigation brought no information from
the persons living or working along the river front. -

However the condition of the torso led the officers to
believe that it had been in the water no more than -two or
three days, and the prospects of solving the mystery seemed

- considerably more favorable than in the Steamboat Slough
_ murder,

In addition to the bracelet, which offered a possible means

of identifying the victim, the investigators obtained a good

set of fingerprints from the corpse.

UT the investigation that was begun hopefully soon
brought one disappointment after another.

In the first place, so far as could be determined, no

woman of the victim’s approximate age and description

had been reported missing. An all-points teletype bulletin’

telling all that was known or could be surmised concerning
her appearance brought no response.

Next, her fingerprints were not on file at the State Bureau
of Identification; and then came the news from Washington
that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had no record of
her prints.

Dr. Arthur F, Wallace, the autopsy surgeon, found the

_murdered girl’s body free of birthmarks, moles or other

blemishes, but he pointed to two characteristics that offered

“> some small hope of establishing her identity, One was a

small vaccination scar, the other was what he termed a
“hammer thumb,” her left thumb being slightly enlarged.

While the post-mortem examination was still in progress,
Undersheriff Knoll gave the newspapers his tentative theory
concerning both of the torso murders. He suspected that
they meant that an abortion ring was operating somewhere
in the county, or in one of the neighboring counties.

This theory received considerable publicity, but the com-
pleted autopsy: showed that there was no basis for it. Dr.
Wallace found that the present victim had never been a
mother, was not pregnant at the time she died, and had
not undergone any illegal operation.

No trace of any poison was found in her internal organs, -
_and the cause of death, like the motive for the slaying,
remained a matter for speculation,

POLICE DRAGNET f

He lured victim from Mexico with promises of luxury in this “mansion.”

The approximate date of the murder was also in doubt.
The torso was in good condition when found, but this might
be due in part to the low temperature of the water. Cali-
fornia and all the western states were experiencing one of

the coldest winters on record.

Dragging operations had begun shortly after the torso
was discovered. No trace of the head or legs were found,
however, and. after several days these efforts were dis-

‘continued.

Since the body might have been in. the water anywhere
from a few days to two weeks or even longer, the officers
again faced the possibility that it had been carried many
miles downstream, Thus, they could not assume that the
murder scene was near Sacramento, it might be located in
a totally unsuspected area, perhaps in one of the neighbor-
ing counties, Presumably, however, both of the bodies had
been dumped into the water somewhere on the American
River, the one found in Steamboat Slough drifting no less
than 25 or 30 miles, from one end of the county to the
other.

Lacking other clues, McVeigh concentrated his efforts
on trying to identify the victim through her bracelet. It was
a costume piece, and he thought it was sufficiently unusual
to offer promise. In the center of the gold band was a raised
design with a setting of thirty-two green and white stones,

‘ three of which were missing.

When the local jewelry establishments were canvassed,
it developed that the bracelet, while not expensive, was
more unusual than McVeigh had expected. None of the
dealers could find it listed in any wholesaler’s catalogue,
and all were sure they had never sold a bracelet of that
particular type. i

McVeigh was advised to get in touch with a certain New
York firm, which might be the distributor that had supplied
the bracelet.

While waiting for a reply from New York, McVeigh gave
the newspapers as complete a description of the victim as
could. be furnished, based on a scientific reconstruction of
the dismembered body.

The girl was described as a slender brunette with black
hair, Her age had been estimated at 22 or 23, but later
calculations made it appear that she was between 18 and
20 years old. Her height was about five feet, four or five
inches; her bust measured 33 inches; her waist, 27; her hips,
32%. She had weighed around (Continued on page 55)

an

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THE FBI
IN ACTION

by KEN JONES

(957

A SIGNET BOOK
Published by THE NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY

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60 ‘Tae FBI in Action

e Chicago mob muscle Dallas. Jack Knapp made bond,
a and ei never could extradite him from Chicago.

Steve Guthrie served one term as sheriff; I don’t know what

happened to him after that. But this much I do know. The
Chicago mobs decided our pleasant city is just a little too tough
for them, and there is no “fix” in Dallas!

“We put a smile on his face,” he said softly, as if still debat-
ing whether that had been wise or not. “But this—” he
shrugged helplessly—*J never expected anything like this!”

It was December, 1952, and cold in those Oklahoma hills.
Even so, little Comanche, population 3,800, had been over-

“T hate them; I hate their guts—everybody!” When he spit
Out his venomous sentiment to the lawyer who was trying to
Save him from San Quentin’s gas chamber, a droopy-eyed and

61


Seni

Sp Ree

wer

stocky Billy

—!

ete > Tae FBLIN ACTION »

a cl ees

fe PRES

Cook was doing more than just sounding off. He.
was, in all probability, summing up the one dominating pas-
sion of his life: hate. Bitter,
low men—all of them, And it was to implement this hate that,

on 29th December, 1950, after some palaver, Cook purchased © *e

from a farmer living near Fabens, Texas, a .32 automatic. With
this weapon, wearing a red shirt, leather jacket, and carrying
a small zipper bag, young Cook hit the road.

“Gee, buddy, thanks for giving me a lift! I’m bound for

Missouri.” It was “Killer” Cook talking to his first intended, . q

victim, Emmett Logan, who had stopped to pick up the hitch-
hiker along the highway near Lubbock, Texas. \

And so the two fell into casual conversation as the dark
miles unreeled behind Logan’s car. Cook was in no hurry. He
was headed in the right direction; Logan was buying the gas
and doing the driving; why mess up a good deal until the time
came? But, in the warped mind of Billy Cook, the time arrived
early the following morning, and when it did he hesitated not
an instant. As the car neared Luther, Oklahoma, the young
hitchhiker whipped out his .32.

“End of the line for you, buddy,” he observed matter-of-
factly. “Pull over and stop.”

Minutes later the astonished Logan found himself robbed of _ =

$85, and imprisoned in the trunk of his own automobile. But
he didn’t stay there. In his hurry, the hoodlum had failed to

lock the trunk securely; Logan, struggling frantically, managed ~

to open the catch; and as Cook slid behind the wheel and sped
smoothly away, Logan managed to tumble out.

Alerted officers soon found Lucky Logan’s car abandoned
in the vicinity of Atwood, Illinois. They also found in it a small
zipper bag containing clothing (not Logan’s) and a bill of sale
for a .32 automatic to one “W E Cook, of St. Louis, Missouri,”
dated December 29th, 1950.

Inquiry near the spot where Logan’s car was found indi-
cated that the fugitive—not yet identified—had hitched an-
other ride. His benefactors this time appeared to be a family
of five—father, mother and three small children—driving a
late model Chevrolet. They were Mr. and Mrs. Carl Mosser of
Atwood and their three tots driving from Illinois to New Mex-
ico. But vigorous prosecution of this lead—Cook was now a
Federal fugitive under the law, having driven Logan’s car

across state lines—was to present authorities with a sickening 7

bombshell.

On January 3, 1951, the Mosser automobile was found aban- q
doned near Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was a shambles. The uphol- dq

senseless and cruel hate of his fel- — a

4 Stery, blood-soaked, was viciously ripped by bullets: Six’.32 car-_

tered slugs were removed from the interior. The Mosser family ass

tridge cases were found in the car, and “several blood

had disappeared into thin air. ;

; Although the killer subsequently spoke of a “struggle,” there
is little reason to believe that he did anything but gun the
father and mother in cold blood, and there is some evidence
that he trussed up the children before blasting them to shreds
at close Tange. Then he dumped all five bodies into an aban-
doned mine shaft near Joplin, Missouri, and there they re-
mained for nearly two weeks.

Governors Johnston Murray of Oklahoma and Sidney Mc-
Math of Arkansas set apart a special day on which all available
citizens of both states were to participate in the hunt for the
missing family.

But while this was going on, the FBI special agents who ex-
amined the Mosser car, and their colleagues, helped make it
impossible for William Edward Cook to wriggle out of the
charge of multiple murder. Here, in part, is what they did:

Armed with the receipt found in the zipper bag in Logan’s
car, they sought out the farmer near Fabens, Texas, who had
sold the .32 automatic to Cook, and questioned -him cour-
teously.

Before you sold the gun to Cook had you fired it yourself?”

Oh, sure; during the past two years I guess I shot a dozen
rounds here and there about the farm.”

Be us where, will you?”

en the FBI men started digging and sifting and i
For days they dug and sired 5 40 dry ditt of she Texas
farm. When they finished they had what they were looking
for: two empty .32 cartridge cases. These were sent to the FBI
laboratory in Washington, where scientific comparison decisive-
ly proved that they were fired from the same gun as the slugs
dug from the blood-spattered upholstery in the Mosser car.

A crumpled Lucky Strike cigarette package was found in
the Mosser car. Attached to this package was an Arkansas
State Tax Stamp bearing the number 26. Under Arkansas law
each tobacco wholesaler has to open cartons of Cigarettes re-
pois from the manufacturer and place on each package an
- ae sales tax stamp which has been canceled by the bond-
iy a deputy of the Miscellaneous Tax Division, Arkansas
win ation And inquiry revealed that only one
= Saler had been assigned the number 26. Through this
preen * FBI special agents finally narrowed the search to a

y café at Winthrop, Arkansas. There, from photographs,

er, hae 95 I .

HOW COOK KILLED 6

(Continued from page 19)

were nearing Ogilby, California, Dewey
started to say, “You don’t mind if 1 have
a smoke——”
_ His hand went for his pocket. It never
reached it; neither did he finish the sen-
tence. The gun in Cook’s hand roared,
and a bullet plunged through Dewey’s
heart. He slumped forward over the steer-
ing wheel. Cook yanked the body to one
side, slid behind the wheel and turned the
car off the highway into the desert.
Without getting out, he kicked the door
open and pushed Dewey’s lifeless body out
into the sand. Turning back to the high-
way, Cook raced the car through Ogilby
and on toward the border. He turned on
the radio. The news that blasted out at
him caused every nerve in his body to
freeze with terror.
' Waldrip had somehow gotten the ropes
loose and had staggered to the highway,
and hailed a car that, took him directly
to the office of Sheriff W. RK. Ware of
Imperial County. Waldrip identified his
kidnapper as William Cook: and told of
the confession Cook had made to him of
killing the Mosser family in Oklahoma;
also how Cook had told him he had killed
two other men in Oklahoma, although the
police had no record of these killings.
Cook stepped on the gas, and the black,
1947 Buick Dewey had been driving picked
up speed. The radio continued to give the
details of the Mosser massacre. It said
that the bodies hadn’t been found but that

_ the’ Governor of Oklahoma had asked

every resident to aid in the search for
them.

Then the radio went on to say that the
FBI had entered the case. ‘This didn't bring
any terror to the killer. The car had
crossed the border, and he was in old
Mexico.

Forty miles below the border he aban-
doned the car as too hot to use for a géet-
away. Dewey’s body would in all proba-
bility be found, and Cook realized he would
be connected with the murder. He didn't
want the FBI trailing the Buick.

After leaving the car in a ravine, Cook

started to walk. The country below the
border was wild, and there were no houses
and few highways.
_ Cook trudged along the narrow highway
that led south. His head was swimming,
He was hungry, and he had no money.
He ag * walking until nearly sundown,
when he came to a small village. He
stumbled into an empty hut and lay down
on the straw-covered floor and fell into
a sleep of complete exhaustion.

Daylight was streaming through the
open door when he awoke. He wondered
where he could get somé food. As he
stepped outside the hut, he saw a maroon
Buick standing near the ‘building that
served as restaurant and hotel in the small.
village.

Cook staggered toward the car, It was
empty. He remained standing beside it,
leaning against the fender. After a while |
Forest Damron, 32, and James Burke, 33,
prospectors from El Centro, California,
came out of the building and walked to-
ward the car. They saw Cook, and Dam-
ron said; “You're an American, aren’t

Cook nodded his answer. Damron said,
“Get in. You look sick.”

The two prospectors got into the car,
and Cook followed. Damron, who was

driving, turned the car north. Cook didn’t
wait i them to get out of the village
before he pointed the gun at the two men.

“Turn south,” Cook snapped. “You're
taking me as far from the border as we
can go. As long as you act right, you can
do the driving. If you don’t v

He turned on the radio. A Los Angeles
commentator was giving the news, and it
wasn't long before he started to talk about
Cook and the murders of Dewey and the
Mosser family.

“] guess you get the idea now,” Cook
said to the two frightened prospectors.

“I'm Cook, and you're taking me deeper:

into Mexico.”

Damron turned the car around and
headed south to start eight days of a living
horror. — -

The week that followed saw the Cook
case become a crime sensation. Police or-
ganizations in every Western state were
searching for him. He was reported daily
in cight or ten different states.

In Oklahoma the entire castern part of
the state, including the famous Cookson
Hills, was combed by thousand of volun-
teer searchers for the bodies of the Mosser
family. But they weren't found. :

The first big break came on the after-
noon of January 15. Early that morning
a man who had been associated with Cook
in prison walked into the office of Cuptain
Carl E. Nutt, chief of detectives, in Joplin,
Missouri, and gave him a tip.

He remembered having heard Cook talk
about an old mine shaft north of West
Fourth Street. Cook had said it would be
a good place to hide a body.

Captain Nutt, Detective Gamble and
Phit Boardman, chief of the Kansas City
bureau of the FBI, went to that old mine
shaft, less than a mile from_ the main
business section of Joplin. Two heavy
boards that covered the shaft had been
pried loose, and when the officers yanked
them away and looked down into the
shaft, using a powerful flashlight, they saw
two bodies floating in the water 30 feet
below :

And within two hours the bodies of all
five members of the Mosser family had
been pulled. to the top and laid on the
ground outside the mine shaft. Doctor
W.-W. Hufst, Coroner, examined the
bodies and found that the father and
mother had been shot through the head
after their hands had been tied with the
cord from the Boy Scout hats worn by
the two Mosser boys. Powder burns
showed that the three children had been
shot through the heart from close range.

N the dusty, dirty street of the small
Mexican Village of Santa Rosalie, 300
miles south of the border at Tijuana,

Cook and his two prospector captives,
Damron and Burke, walked toward a small
restaurant. Cook way behind the two, the
revolver in his coat pocket, his fingers
clutching it. His face was pale and hag-
gard and his eyes red-rimmed from lack of

sleep.

or eight days the men had looked at
the gun in Cook’s hand, never knowing
when the nervous, twitching finger might
squeeze the trigger. At night they camped
out, with Cook sitting aguinst a tree, watch-

ing them. In all those eight days he had

given them no chance to over-power him.
The three got to the restaurant, and

Damron and Burke went in first. Cook
looked around quickly. The small street
of the mining village was deserted. He
slipped the gun in his belt and entered,
taking a seat at a table, facing Damron
and Burke.

Two other men entered the restaurant,
Cook looked up, but he had no chance to
reach for his gun. Francisco Karus Mor-
ales, police chief of Tijuana, had him
covered. “Keep your hands on the table,
or I shoot.”

Cook’s hand went on the table. Morales
reached down and grabbed his gun. Cook’s
lower lip began to quiver, and his thin body
began to shake. He made no resistance
when the handcuffs clicked on his wrists.

A crowd of newspapermen, state officers
and FBI agents were waiting at Tijuana
when Chief Morales arrived several hours
later by plane with Cook and the two pros:
pectors, The. story of how Morales had
traced Cook was simple.

Two days before, Xavier Gonzales, pay-
master at San Rosulia mine, and Jerry
Grant from San Diego, an engineer at the
mine, passed a maroor. sedan on a narrow
mountain road. They saw three men in
the car, and, remembering that Damron
and Burke had been reported missing with
their maroon sedan, notified Chief Morales,
who flew to San Rosalia to investigate.
He spotted Cook and the two prospectors
entering the restaurant.

The newspapermen stared at the dimuni-
tive Cook with some amazement. He didn’t
look much like a deadly killer, standing
there, his lips quivering, as if he suddenly
was going to burst into tears.

He wailed, “I’m a good boy.
killed anybody.”

Taken to San Diego, he claimed that
he had no memory of what he had done

I never

_for several weeks. He didn’t even remem-

ber the Mosser family. “I got drunk on
Christmas night at Blythe,” he whimpered,
“and I blacked out.” _ >

However, he changed his story when
the FBI men questioned him at length.
He confessed he had killed the Mosser fam-
ily as they neared Joplin because Mrs.
Mosser was screaming. He also admitted
killing Dewey in the desert.

He was brought back to Oklahoma,
where he was charged with the murder
of the Mosser family. Sitting in his cell,
he whimpers: “I am a good boy. T didn’t
want to kill anybody.”

END

Headquarters Detective
Scoops the Field Again!

“How Cook Killed 6’ is an excellent
example of the timeliness and quality
readers get in Headquarters Detective
every month, Don't miss a single issue
of this great magazine and you'll always
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10c


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poor communications.

To Guy Woodward, chief of police of
El Centro, California, went the distinction
of uncovering the next major clue in the
swift-moving case. While searching the
area north of San Felipe—a sleepy fishing
village at the head of the Gulf of Califor-
nia—Woodward saw a blue Buick, minus
its license plates, abandoned on the right
side of the San Felipe Mexicali road. Vari-
ous garments were strewn about inside, and
the metal foot locker on the back seat was
stamped “Dewey.” Footprints alongside
the car showed three different shoe sizes
and tire tracks, indicating that a light car,
possibly a Chevrolet, Plymouth or Ford,
had backed down the road to within 30
feet of the abandoned car. There was no
sign of skidding or spinning of the wheels
and it was apparent that it had come to a
stop, much as had Dewey’s car on the
desert stretch.

OON FBI AGENTS and deputy sheriffs
and California Highway Patrol officers,

and Mexican police officials were poring
over the vehicle, dusting for fingerprints.
No clear patterns were found, however, but
a maroon-colored sports shirt, with the
label “J. C. Penney” was identified by
Deputy Waldrip as the garment worn by
his kidnaper.

Aware that whoever had stopped to give
Cook a lift—as the car tracks indicated—
was now in grave danger of being mur-
dered, the Lower California peninsula be-
came the scene of the greatest manhunt in
the history of the region. Three airplanes
carrying FBI Agents, Mexican police, and
California Highway Patrol officers flew
over key roads, distributing “wanted”
flyers printed in Spanish.

At FBI Headquarters in Washington, the
fugitive desk supervisors handled a steady
flow of Teletype communications with field
offices in the Midwest and Southwest, see-
ing to it that the wanted flyers were
rushed to key areas.

The FBI set up a temporary headquar-
ters at El Centro, California, in the office of
Sheriff R. B. Ware, who is sheriff for Im-
perial County. It was from this point that
the work of the various law enforcement
agencies was coordinated.

On the afternoon of January 9th came
word that two more individuals might be
victims of the swift-striking killer, when
Mrs. James Burke called to report that her
husband, and a friend, Forrest Damron,
had left home the preceding January 5th,
to do some prospecting in the Chocolate
Mountain area—a remote region—and had
not been heard from since.

“Both my husband and his friend were
desert-bred—they know how to take care
of themselves and couldn’t have been lost.
I’m afraid something else might have hap-
pened to them,” reported Mrs. Burke.
“They know the country well. They never
have been away like this before.”

On the theory that they might have
fallen victim to the marauding gunman, an
alarm was broadcast for a 1950 maroon
Studebaker, California license 86 A 2351,
and within 24 hours, through Commandante
Jesus V. Marroquin at Mexicali, the FBI
arranged for a helicopter patrol of the
Lower California area, to be coordinated
with a terrain search along the roads. The
scope and intensity of the effort was on an
unprecedented scale. In addition to the
helicopters, at Mexicali 100 officers were
making a house-to-house check of the en-
tire city, an additional 30 officers were
distributing the FBI’s wanted flyers east-
ward to the Sonora line. Two jeep parties
led by FBI Agents covered the roads to
Kilometer 57 near the Sonora line, 5 jeeps
and one reconnaissance car led by an FBI
Agent covered the roads leading to Alaska,
Mexico; forty officers, ten cars, and eight

horses formed another group covering the
region of Colonia Zacatecas.

The desolate terrain was rugged to an
extreme, large drainage canals criss-
crossed the landscape one mile apart, and
for hundreds of miles giant saguaro cactus
and underbrush six feet in height formed a
dense screen in which anything could be
hidden.

From the air, the landscape was devoid of
life—sand dunes and barren hummocks
dotted the ground. Yet the searchers were
confident that somewhere in the cul-de-sac
formed by the Lower California peninsula,
the gunman would be trapped.

While this was going on, other FBI
Agents in the United States were working
round-the-clock in an effort to close all the
gaps in Cook’s background. By the 12th of
January, G-Men in Joplin, Missouri,
learned that as a boy, Cook had played
about the abandoned lead and zinc mines,
located four blocks north of U. S. 66; and
had at one time threatened to shoot an ex-
convict acquaintance and throw him down
a hundred-foot shaft. Maps of all aban-
doned mines in the area were obtained
from the State Mine Inspector’s Office,
and a thorough search of the area was
begun.

On the 15th, a group of FBI Agents, Chief
of Detectives Carl E. Nutt and Detective
Walter Gamble of the Joplin Police De-
partment were exploring a rubble-strewn
area in the vicinity of Oliver and Second
Streets, when they discovered that the
planking was loose on one worked-out
shaft. There were 14 two-inch planks laid
over three railroad ties, and two planks
were in place but not nailed. When they
lifted the planks and looked inside, they
found that it was so deep that they could
not see bottom. A mile-ray lamp was
brought up, and its beam directed down-
ward. As the swath of light cut through
the darkness, the searchers stared.

“We observed the body of a small child,”
reports one of the eye-witnesses, “floating
face downward on the surface of the water
thirty feet below the ground. Other vague
forms were observed, but no further recog-
nition could be made.”

A call to the Joplin Fire Department,
brought emergency rescue equipment. Fire-
man Henry Cook, no relation to the fugi-
tive, rigged up a three-foot wooden square
raft which could be lowered into the shaft
on a steel cable, slipped an air mask over
his head, and dropped below. He found a
pile of timbers choking the shaft at the
bottom, and floating-in the water above the
timbers, were the five Mossers. The fire-
man handled them gently, brought them to
the surface one at a time.

HE GRIM TASK began at 1:55 p.m.—by

2:41 p.m., the members of the once happy
little family who had so gaily set forth for
their holiday trip, were stretched out on a
square of tarpaulin. Each had been shot—
some more than once—bound and gagged.
Yellow cord from the children’s cowboy
hats was wrapped around the wrists of the
parents. Some of the children had pieces
of pink turkish toweling stuffed into their
throats. Powder burns on the children in-
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Se Re TERT

Terror On U. 8. Highway 66

(Continued from page 19) Meanwhile, FBI
Agents at El Paso developed another lead.
A check on the local hotels showed that
one William E. Cook of Joplin, Missouri,
had signed the register at the Arlington
Hotel on December 27th, at the same time
as had a Mr. and Mrs. E. L. Pierce who
had given their residence as “Wood’s Motel,
Blythe, California.”

On the chance that the Pierces might be
able to give some information about Cook,
the Resident Agent at Riverside was
alerted. He telephoned the sheriff's office
at Blythe at 4 p.m. on January 5th, spoke to
Deputy Homer Waldrip.

“I’1] look into it,” the latter promised.
“By the way, what does this fellow Cook
look like?”

The Agent described the gunman, Wal-
drip exclaimed, “Say, that sounds pretty
much like a fellow who worked around
one of the cafes here as a helper. I know
his first name was Bill—I’ll get his full

. name and find out what I can about him.”

T
D

90

Waldrip’s wife, Polly, worked as a
waitress at the cafe in question and a check
on the records revealed that his full name
was William E. Cook.

That he could be a fugitive murderer as-
tounded Waldrip, who had known him as a
quiet, well-mannered, soft-spoken youth
who had often serviced his car with gas
and oil.

Following the lead, the deputy went to
Wood’s Motel, where he learned that the
Pierces had checked out on the same day
as Cook and had not returned. However,
when Waldrip learned that another of
Cook’s friends, a Bill Peterson, had left
earlier that day for San Bernardino, and
was due to return the following day, he
decided to talk to Peterson the next morn-

ing.

At 10:15 a.m. on January 6th, Waldrip
knocked on the cabin frame. There was no
answer. He opened the screen door,
knocked again and said, “Peterson.”

This time a voice answered, “Yeah.”

“This is Deputy Waldrip—I want to talk
to you for a minute.”

There was a soft patter of footsteps cross-
ing the floor. Then the door opened on a
room darkened by drawn blinds. Waldrip
stepped inside, and a moment later found
himself staring into the muzzle of a .38
caliber automatic. “Make it snappy,” said
a voice. Looming above the gun was the
face of the squinting, hard-jawed Cook.

Stripped of his gun and cartridge belt
by the man who had the drop on him,
Waldrip was told to sit in a chair.

“I’m sorry it has to be you,” said Cook.
“You and your wife have been pretty de-
cent to me.” :

“I don’t know what you're talking about,”
said the deputy, stalling for time.

“Yes you do—the FBI is after me and
you know it.” .

“No one is looking for you—you’re imag-
ining things.”

Cook shook his head. “I’m in serious
trouble, so serious that it doesn’t make a
bit of difference to me if somebody is
killed. You and I are going for a ride. Go
to the door and act as if nothing has hap-
pened. We'll get in your car. But don’t try
any funny stuff because I’ll have you
covered all the time.”

The deputy’s car with the red flasher on
the roof was parked outside. Cook watched
warily while Waldrip slipped behind the
wheel.

“Go west on Route 60,” he advised.

As they passed the cafe, Cook asked,
“Your wife working?”

“Yes,”

“Then step on it—I don’t want anybody

to recognize me. No one knows I’ve come
back.”

Westward from Blythe, US 60 sweeps
across the dusty floor of the Colorado Des-
ert in an unending straight line.

As THE CAR ROARED toward the hori-
zon, the gunman leaned back against the
corner of the seat. “I’ve already killed
seven people,” he mused. “And you’re go-
ing to be the eighth.” Waldrip watched
him out of the corner of his eyes, saw the
gun pointed straight at his ribs. He said
nothing, but kept his eyes on the road
ahead. After a while his captor asked,
“How often do you have to check in?”

“Every hour.”

“How long since you last checked?”

“An hour.”

“Call now,” he ordered, pointing to the
radio-telephone.

Waldrip flipped a switch, picked up the
phone, and repeated his call letters, 131—
waited for a response, but got only static.
“Out of range,” he explained.

“What’s that one three one business?”

“My unit number, why?”

Cook shook his head. “I think it was a
distress signal.” He patted the gun on his
lap. “If anyone tries to stop us, I’ll kill you
first, then shoot it out with the others.
You’d better push this gas-wagon as fast
as you can hold it.”

Waldrip did as he was told. The car
leaped toward the pale gray of the Choco-
late Mountains. “When we reach the next
crossroads, stop the first car that comes
along with your flasher light,” Cook
ordered.

“Then what are you going to do?”

He smiled to himself. “Right now I’m
thinking only up to that point.” ,

The next road, however, was a dirt road
leading southward across an even more
desolate stretch of wasteland, toward the
Mexican border.

For the next half hour, the gunman
watched the deputy with cat-eyed silence.
Finally, after they had crossed the rocky
barren of Arroyo Seco, he said, “Stop
here and come out facing me.”

The car ground to a halt. Cook backed
out, Waldrip followed. “Now put your
hands over your head ?nd -start walking.”

The gun in his back, the deputy was
forced to walk across 200 yards of desert
toward a shallow draw. “Lie down, and
keep your hands behind your back.” When
he complied, his hands were bound with
strips of torn blanket—while Cook, kneel-
ing, pressed the gun into the small of his
back. Finally the gunman rose. “No use
tying your feet. I’m going to put a bullet
into your head anyway.” Face down in
the choking dust, the deputy twisted his
head to one side, saw the gunman walking
backward. “If I were you,” he was saying,
“I wouldn’t try to get up for thirty or
forty minutes.”

The next thing the deputy knew, he
heard the car getting underway. He got to
his feet—for some reason Cook had re-
lented at the last moment, and Waldrip,
although stranded in the desert 50 miles
from the nearest habitation, still had a
fighting chance for survival. He started
south toward the twin volcanic peaks of
the Cargo Muchacho Mountains, which he
knew were just north of the town of
Ogilby.

An hour later, after freeing his hands, he
stumbled into an abandoned cabin near
Middle Well, sat in the shade for a few
minutes, while. he scribbled a message.
“I am walking toward Ogilby,” he wrote.
“Please pick me up.” He signed his name,
the time, and the date, and left it on the

doorstep on the off-chance that someone
might find it. Then he renewed his trek
south,

On a jeep patrol from Yuma, Arizona,
U. S. Border Patrol Inspectors Wayne
Henderson and Lloyd Short were rolling
cross-country seven miles south of Middle
Well when they spied the lone figure on the
road. Waldrip spotted them too, and
started waving—a moment later he was
telling his story of the kidnapping and car
theft to the border patrolmen. They tried
to raise their station on the radio—but
found they were out of range.

“We'll head for Ogilby,” they decided.
“We can send from there and might be able
to have him run off the road.”

They headed south across the desert
floor—when through the haze they caught
sight of a winking red light—an ominous
beacon in such a setting.

“That’s my car,” said Waldrip.

Inspector Henderson scanned the vehicle
through his field glasses. “The door’s
open,” he said. “I can’t see the driver.”

When they came within 50 feet, they
dismounted, guns drawn. After hearing
Waldrip’s story they were taking no
chances of an ambush.

But there was no sign of the fugitive—
only tracks in the road showing where an
approaching vehicle had stopped, then
turned around and headed south. Foot-
prints in the sand showed prints from the
sheriff’s car to the halted vehicle—an all
too familiar pattern of Cook’s modus
operandi. .

The implication was frightening.

Was the gunman, at the very moment,
terrorizing a new victim?

The jeep roared southward in pursuit.
It covered four miles, when Inspector
Short, who was driving, swerved to avoid
running into something lying in the road.
When the inspectors got out, they saw the
stocky figure of a young man lying face
downward in the dust. There were two
bullet holes in the middle of his back and
he was dead.

There was no sign of a skid mark or tire
track—blood drops indicated he had merely
been pushed from a speeding vehicle.

Papers identified the murdered man as
Robert H. Dewey, a salesman on vacation
from Seattle, Washington. The storekeeper
at Ogilby recalled that he had stopped by
earlier in the day for a drink of beer, and
had talked about his plan to do some hunt-
ing and fishing in the region. An autopsy
showed that he had been struck by .38
caliber slugs, which had pierced his heart,
causing instantaneous death.

It was 3:30 p.m. when Waldrip flashed
the first word, and at 3:34 p.m. station
KMA was broadcasting an “All Cars” bul-
letin on the fugitive. By 3:55 p.m. road
blocks had been established on all high-
_ways east and west of Blythe, manned by
a cooperative team of FBI Agents, deputy
sheriffs, police department officers, border
patrol and immigration officers: who were
alerted along the Mexico-U. S. line. At
Blythe, the motor court and cafe were kept
under constant surveillance, all trains en-
tering or leaving Mexico were given a car-
to-car search, and all airport ticket agents
and plane crews were given special brief-
ings on Cook’s appearance by FBI Agents.
Radios repeated the alarms, television sta-
tions flashed his photograph on thousands
of receivers, while FBI “wanted” flyers
were sent throughout the region.

The authorities were prepared to reckon
with the fact that he had slipped across the
border before the alarms had been in-
stituted. U.S. and Mexican officers began
a patrol of the desolate stretches of Lower

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Cook, he had reported the incident to
Chief of Police Francisco Kraus Morales
at Tiajuana. Chief Morales immediately
made arrangements to fly to El Marmal.

“Yes,” the residents said when they saw
Cook’s photograph. “The man was here,
but he left a few days ago.”

Chief Morales continued south—to Punta
Prieta, 60 miles away. “Been here and
gone,” he was told again.

The next town was Santa Rosalfa, mid-
way down the peninsula, where he arrived
early on the afternoon of January 15th, and
went to confer with the local chief of po-
lice, Luis Parra Rodriguez.

The latter said, “If he’s in town it won’t
take us long to find him.”

They set out in a patrol wagon, to cover
the main street of the wind-blown town.

They were. riding eastward, when, mid-
way on the main street, they spotted three
Americans—two dressed in hunting out-
fits, the third wearing a leather wind-
breaker, The police officers said nothing.
The patrol went by, stopped at the next
corner, the two chiefs got out, went back
along the street, toward a restaurant.

They peered for a moment into the plate
glass window, spotted the three Americans
seated in a booth not far away. Two sat
facing the third who had his back to the
door. Chief Parra stepped inside, walked
swiftly up to the booth, drew his service
pistol, a .45 automatic, and with his right
hand put its muzzle against the nape of the
neck of the man whose back was turned,
while with his left hand he pulled a .38
from the seated man’s belt. He handed
this gun to. Chief Morales who had now
come up, ordered all at the table to stand
against the wall, and searched them.

Cook, who. of course was easily recog-
nizable from his FBI photo, was then hand-
cuffed. It was 12:02 p.m. Pacific time when
the arrest was made—bringing to an end
the vast manhunt which had spanned two
countries. ’

The two men with the fugitive identified
themselves as James Burke and Forrest
Damron for whom the missing persons
alarm had been broadcast. They told a
story of eight days’ ordeal as hostages
under the constant threat of imminent
death.

The next day the fugitive was flown to
Tiajuana and thrust across the border into
the waiting hands of the FBI Agents, armed
with a warrant for his arrest. Within a
matter of. minutes, he was taken to the
FBI San Diego office for questioning. He
trembled, spoke in whispers. The cruel
bravado with which he had terrorized his
victims was now gone.

At first, he maintained “I don’t remem-
ber” to all questions, refusing to discuss
anything. ;

By the next. day, however, he was more
tractable, and from his lips came a story
of the wild, aimless murder tour. He told
how on December 27th, when he left Blythe
for a trip east, because he was “homesick,”
he stopped at El Paso to buy a gun, and
crossed the border to have some fun, then
came the hijacking and attempted murder
of Archer, and contact with the Mossers.

“A man and a woman and three chil-
dren came by in a car,” he said. “I mo-
tioned them to pull ahead of me and they
stopped on the side of the road. At this
time I was a little excited, thinking that
the police were on my trail, and I left my
bag containing my personal effects in the
Buick convertible. (Archer’s.)

“I jumped into their car, put the gun on
them, and told the man to drive to Okla-
homa City, and if they did as I told them
they would not get hurt.

“We finally arrived at Oklahoma City,
and drove around for approximately an
hour, then headed south on 66 toward
Wichita Falls.”

He then went on to describe how he

forced Mosser to drive as far as Carlsbad
Caverns, New Mexico, before ordering
him to turn around and’ proceed eastward.

“I saw a line of pice cays at El Paso,”
he said, “and I told him to turn around
and head for Houston. We went to the
Arkansas border and crossed at De Queen.

“We drove around Arkansas and then I
decided to visit Joplin, my home town.

“Between Fort Smith and Joplin, the
man started ‘screaming, which excited the
kids and they started screaming. I quieted
them and decided to tie them up. I put
the woman in the driver’s seat and tied the
man and the three kids with strips of cloth
from a blanket. I put the man in the back
seat and forced the woman to drive, then
made them switch outside of Joplin.

“A few miles south of Joplin, a white
car came up, looked us over good, then
went on. A few minutes after this the
woman became hysterical—the kids started
screaming and the man became very ex-
cited and tried to stop the automobile.

“I saw a light shining on a house about
a hundred yards away—I turned around
and started shooting. I do not know how
many shots I fired but the car was com-
pletely covered with blood. I drove into
Joplin, and remembering an old abandoned
mine shaft, I drove to it, and dumped the
bodies,

“I drove all night to Tulsa—I got there
in the morning as the people were going
to work; I was excited and driving too fast,
and I crashed into the back of a car at a
stop light. Six other cars jammed up
ahead of it, and all the drivers got out and
started heading in my direction. I backed
up, swung into a side street and headed
for the southeast, on a dirt road. Awhile

ANSWERS
(Continued from page 4)

6. a

Poe
ernen

later I slid into a muddy ditch and had to
abandon the car.

“I never knew the name of the people—
I heard on the radio that it was the Mosser
family I kidnapped.”

As for the murder of Dewey, he said that
after he left Waldrip tied up in the desert,
he came to the main highway, stopped the
car, and turned the red flasher light on
Dewey, who stopped.

“I said, ‘You’ve got yourself in a pretty
bad jam, haven’t you fellow?’ He said
‘No, not that I know of.’

“Yes you did—you ran over a little girl
two miles down the road and you didn’t
stop to give aid.”

“I got in the car and told him to drive
back to where he hit the girl. He was
very nervous and asked if he could smoke

.a cigarette. I told him to go ahead—he

dropped it between the seat and the front
door—and when he reached for it, I
thought I heard a click, and I shot him
with the sheriff’s pistol. Then I pushed
him into the road and shot him a second
time to end his suffering. But I guess he
didn’t have a gun after all, because I
looked and couldn’t find it. If he hadn’t
gotten nervous and made the move he did,
he would still be alive.

“T took his car across the border to San
Felipe. Nobody spoke English—but they
told me it was the end of the road—and
that I should go back north. After about
25 miles the car stopped running and I put
the gun on these other fellows.”

Such was his story of ‘the weird, aimless
tour which had carr! d a terrified family
thousands of miles in four days.

According to his account, after abandon-

ing the Mossers’ car at Tulsa, he had left
town by bus, and by combining short bus
trips with random hitchhikes, he had
worked his way back to Blythe where he
had sneaked back to the motel.

eas HE HAD TOLD Waldrip that
he had “already killed seven” this was
his way of boasting of his crimes. He had
actually murdered five—the Mossers. Dew-
ey was destined to be the sixth and last.

To the press, however, he maintained a
stubborn silence. “I never knew anybody
named Mosser,” he told the reporters. “I
don’t remember anything.”

“Why don’t you tell your story?” per-
sisted one newshawk.

He shook his head. “I don’t have a story.”

Removed to Oklahoma City on January
19th to face federal “Lindbergh” law
charges of kidnapping while both Califor-
nia and Missouri prepared murder charges
against him, Cook boasted to his fellow
prisoners en route that he was an atheist,
that he didn’t believe in God, and that
when someone had sent a Bible to his cell
he had torn it to pieces and flushed it
down the drain. “I’m in a tough spot,” he
admitted, “but you can only die once—if
they kill me, well, it’s all over with.”

Brought before Federal Judge Stephen
S. Chandler on January 25th, Cook first
pleaded innocent to charges, later entered
a guilty plea, while his attorneys sought
to establish that he was insane.

The hearing as to Cook’s competence to
enter a guilty plea took place on March
21st. The government’s views were ex-
pressed by U. S. Attorney Robert E. Shel-
ton who said, “He is sane—he is sham-
ming insanity.”

Finally Judge Chandler said: “I find
that he has sufficient mental ‘capacity to
enter the plea and I accept the plea.

“Now the question is shall we have a
jury trial for the purpose of determining
whether the death penalty should be im-
posed. I have come to the conclusion that
he did not commit these offenses with
malice aforethought. I deny trial by jury.
I am and always have been a firm believer
in capital punishment, but society stands
indicted for the crime of letting this child
be mistreated.”

U. S. Attorney Shelton was on his feet:
“As the district attorney of this Federal
District, I respectfully disagree with every
word the court has uttered. My mother
died when I was five. I lived in a dugout.
Such a beginning does not excuse the mur-
der of six innocent people. If there ever
was a crime which demands the death
penalty this is it. I want the court, and so-
ciety, and the public, to know where law
enforcement stands.”

The judge nodded. “I understand your
right to an opinion, but I am familiar with
the facts in this case.” He turned to the
prisoner, “William E. Cook, Jr.—stand up.
I sentence you to the custody of the at-
torney general for a period of 60, years on
the first count, and for a like sentence on
each of the other four counts to run con-
secutively. I further recommend that this
man be committed to Alcatraz.”

The consecutive terms totaled 300 years.

Four hours after the sentencing, how-
ever, the Department of Justice announced
that the gunman would be turned over to
the state of California to stand trial for the
murder of Dewey. California has capital
punishment.

Meanwhile he is being held in Alcatraz.

Epiror’s Norte:

The name Bill Peterson, as used in the
foregoing story, is not the real name of
the person concerned.

Photographs of the slayer appear on
page 18, left, and on page 19.

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COOK, William E., white, asphyxiated California (Imper

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the National Industrial Council, and the
Associated General Contractors. Mosher,
who believed that only indirect controls
and reform of. monetary policy were
needed now, conceded that more strin-
gent measures might be desirable later.
Lewis conceded nothing.

In his sonorous voice, he rumbled that:
Controls couldn’t possibly work, because
of the faim-parity provisions in the De-”
fense Production Act, and because many
union contracts contain escalator clauses
tying wages to living. costs, and these
“cannot properly be vitiated.” :
»The only way to keep prices down was
to increase production, and this labor
and management could easily do’ pro-’
vided the government didn’t harass them.

If the government needed 25 per cent
of the nation’s output for defense, Lewis

argued, American industry wouldn't find
it, difficult to increase production by 25
per cent; in fact, some industries already
were doing so. |

“That’s American free enterprise,” he
told Cyrus Ching and the board.

.“We see no réason,” thundered Lewis,
“for our country, a democracy, to adopt
“techniques of more authoritarian forms
‘of government.” !
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‘Killer on a Rampage

*On'the day before Christmas, a squint-
eyed youth named William Edward Cook
quit his‘job ‘as a dishwasher in a Blythe,
Calif., café and slipped out of town as
inconspicuously as he had arrived. No-
body took the 22-year-old Missourian for
‘what he was—a hardened thief who had
been’ in ‘and out of ‘reformatories and
prisons: since his twelfth birthday. es
‘before leaving Blythe, Cook told a pal he
was hitchhiking back to Joplin, Mo., to

see his’ father. But Cook’s tour eastward .

- soon became @ nightmare to police.
- Lee ‘Archer, a Tahoka, Texas, me-
-chanic, was held up by a hitchhiker who
took $85 from him, locked him in the car
trunk,.and drove into Oklahoma. Archer
“forced his-escape froni the moving car,

22,1981) 9.8.

” ty,

. January

/ *

ut a?

Lewis to Ching: Controls can’t stop inflation: free enterprise can

later found abandoned. A receipt for the
purchase of a pistol made out to “W. E.
Cock” was on the front seat.

Around noon on Dec. 30, the Carl Mos-
ser family of Atwood, IIl., who were driv-
ing west on a vacation, picked up Cook
as a hitchhiker somewhere in Oklahoma.
He took command and forced the Mos-
sers to drive him for three days aimlessly
through Arkansas, Texas, and Oklahoma,
before he murdered them—Carl, 33, his
wife Thelma, 29, and their three chil-
dren. Their blood-stained car was found
Jan. 2 near Tulsa and their bodies Jan. 15
in an unused mine shaft near Joplin, Mo.
_. Back in Blythe, the FBI asked Deputy
Sheriff Homer Waldrip to check on
Cook’s whereabouts. Waldrip, a burly
man whose wife had worked in the café
with Cook, went to the motel where
Cook’s pal lived. Rapping on the door, he
was met by Cook himself, pointing a gun.
The boy’ disarmed’ Waldrip, bundled
him into his own car, and headed into the
desert south toward the Mexican border.
Cook told ‘Waldrip all about his recent
career’ aS a desperado. “I’ve murdered
seven other people and I'd’ just as soon
murder you,”* Cook said. He admitted
killing the Mosser family and two un-
identified _men
bodies he claimed he had buried in a
snowdrift. Deep in the desert, Cook
ordered Waldrip out of the car, bound
the deputy, and left him.

Border patrolmen found Waldrip’s car
near Ogilby, Calif—and in it the body of
Cook’s latest - victim, Robert Dewey, a

in Oklahoma whose |

a Lapeer Rig ae eis ied ee re

NATIONAL AFFAI

traveling salesman from Seattle. Dewey’s
car was found abandoned in Lower Cali-
fornia, 50 miles below the Mexican bor-
der. Tire marks of another car nearby
led police to believe Cook had halted
still another motorist. —

Two prospectors, Forrest Damron and
James Burke, left E] Centro, Calif., for
an overnight trip to Lower California and
never returned; it was feared they might
have fallen into Cook’s hands. ;

Last Monday, Conk was captured 400
miles below the border. With him were
Damron and Burke, still unharmed.

DISASTERS:

Blaze in the Loop _ ‘i

Chicago, which has been plagued by
fire ever since Mrs. O’Leary’s cow in
1871, had another big one’ last week.
This time it was the old warehouse at tha

corner of LaSalle Street on the edge of *

the Loop, built in 1875, only four, years
after the great fire. oda
For five hours firemen battled flames
that completely destroyed the*' ware-
house containing offices and: storerooms
of the B.F. Goodrich Rubber Co., a pop-
corn manufacturer, a cheese “company,
and other organizations for a loss esti-
mated at $1,500,000.. Be MS Ls
How the fire started was not known.
Nor was it clear what caused the explo-
sion that sent a burning wall crashing into
the street, burying fire-1en in the, flame

and rubble. Two firemen, were ‘killed.
F , ones *. try" oh 91 apes.

ial County) on December 12, 1952.

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as possible between
vast. Somehow he had
< east to his old haunts
serious trouble than

is predicament, where
2ly to go? Deputy Wal-
.e might have returned
ie with his own trans-
y had often expressed
e fact that he couldn’t
i gun as the means, he
ive acquired one.
‘d on his own service
his county car and set
motels in and around
two places he checked,
a dozen out-of-state
‘ owners described to
rs, but none could con-

Waldrip got the same
roprietor added, “But
‘ap staying here who
Checked in last night
iveling light.”

meant nothing to the
ced, “What’s he look

t so—short, dark and
m right eye of some
s down.”

for Waldrip. Hand
ode across the auto
1e door of the unit
‘as staying. He lifted
10cked. ;
sponse and Waldrip
knob. Suddenly the
t gun jabbed into his
draw.

mly in a red flannel
puty’s face. “Get in
he snarled.

on Waldrip, Cook
pistol and ammuni-
d him in a corner
‘lipped into his jeans
aught up his leather
and.

9 your “car,” Cook
with you. One yelp
rg!”

: dgputy out of the
ose beside him with
ind across the court
ol car. :

1 behind the wheel,
. and Cook climbed
mmed the door.
rder,” the gunman
cks!”

| the motor and did
ting the car toward
2s to the south.

1 by and the pave-
‘vel, Waldrip spoke
ow about a cigaret

lis shirt pocket with
a smoke and gave
deputy lit it from
voard. .
nst you,” the gun-
ly. “I worked with
“he was nice to me.
- But do as I say,

as riding with sud-
1 in silence.

Cook lit a cigaret for himself, still hold-

‘ing his gun tightly on the driver, and be-

came talkative.

“If you was anybody else, I'd let ya
have it,” he sneered. “Don't think |
wouldn't. I just killed seven other people,
and I’d just as soon kill you!”

Waldrip didn’t ask for details, but the
kid volunteered some of them.

“Why, I wiped out a whole family some
place back in Oklahoma,” he went on.
“Tossed all five bodies in a snow bank
where nobody’ll find ’em—until the thaw
comes.” He laaghed harshly.

The deputy’s continued silence re-
minded the gunman that he had talked
too much. From that point on, he kept a

. tight mouth until the car neared Ogilby,

a little town just above the Mexican
border.

There he ordered Waldrip to pull over
and stop. The deputy got out and Cook
forced him, at gunpoint, to lie down on
the desert while he bound him hand and
foot with a length of rope from the back
of the patrol car. For one long, ominous
moment he stood over Waldrip. Then,
leaving him lying helpless in the hot sun
at the edge of the road, Cook climbed
back into the car, gunned the motor and
roared off toward the border.

The kid was on his way again, this time
with his own transportation. But the
patrol car, with the gilt lettering on the
sides and the big red spotlight on top,
was too hot for him to hold. The chance
to swap it for another came sooner than
he expected.

Seven miles from where he dumped
Waldrip, the kid caught up with a blue
1947 Buick sedan, carrying Washington
State license plates. The sedan was loafing
along ahead of him, traveling in the same
direction, its lone occupant a dark-haired
young man at the wheel. j

This was a setup, and the kid made
the best of it. Switching on the siren of
his police car, Cook drew alongside the
blue sedan and forced it to a stop at the
edge of the desert road. The driver looked
around, puzzled at being overtaken, and
reached for his license.

Cook slipped out of the patrol car, its
motor still running, and marched back
to the sedan. He yanked open the right
door with one hand and drew with the
other. The startled driver looked into th
barrel of a shiny .32. -

“You're not a cop!” he gasped.

Cook’s left hand slapped him twice
across the face and blood trickled from
the driver’s mouth. The kid slammed the
door and shoved the gun into the driver's
ribs, lifting his wallet.

“Wise guy,” he snarled. “I got an itchy
finger, chum. Get rollin’ before this thing
goes off!”

A mile ahead, at the road’s intersection
with Route 80, Cook ordered the driver
to turn left toward Yuma, Ariz: Nervously
completing the turn, the motorist reached
for the burning stub of a cigaret between
his trembling lips. It fell to the floor and
he bent to pick it up.

That move was his last. The instant his
right shoulder dropped, Cook sent a slug
crashing into his temple.

The kid seized the wheel and turned

off the ignition as the driver slumped .

forward, blood spurting from the hole

in his head. Opening thé left door, he
kicked the body out on the road and
moved over behind the wheel. He
slammed the door shut, started the motor
again and sent the sedan spinning toward
Yuma and the border.

Two hours later, a passing motorist
found Deputy Waldrip, unable to free
himself and red-faced from the fierce sun,
lying bound at the roadside near Ogilby.
The motorist cut the ropes, gave Waldrip
water from a thermos and took him
aboard. .

“I'm the luckiest man alive,” the dep-
uty said thickly as they drove south. “Billy
Cook decided to give me a break.”

Seven miles down the road they found
Waldrip’s patrol car, the engine still run-
ning and the red spotlight burning,
switched on when Cook cut in the siren.

The deputy transferred to his own car
and followed the motorist as they con-
tinued toward Yuma.

‘Less than a mile farther, they found
the bedy of a dark-haired man in his
early 30s lying sprawled at the edge of
the highway, a pool of blood around his
head.

Waldrip got out and bent to examine
the victim. “Shot in the right temple,”
he said grimly. “Cook told me he killed
seven. This makes eight!”

The dead man’s wallet. was missing,
. but from other papers in his pockets the

deputy identified him ‘as Robert H.
Dewey, 32, a salesman from Seattle.

Since the crime had occurred in Cali-
fornia, Waldrip-and the motorist turned
west and drove to El Centro, the seat of
Imperial County. There Waldrip told
the story of his kidnaping and Dewey's
murder to Police Chief Guy Woodward.

“Cook’s sticking to his pattern,” Wood-
ward declared. “By this time he’s proba-
bly over the border in Dewey’s car, using
the victim’s registration to pass the im-
migration officers.” *y

While Woodward’s men and county
deputies went back to pick up the Seattle
salesman’s body, word of Cook’s latest
murder was flashed to the FBI and all
police departments along both sides of
the border.

Hundreds of officers, sparked by the
FBI, fanned out in a 200-miles radius to
close in on the sawed-off desperado from
Missouri. It was one of the biggest man-
hunts in Southern California history, and
joined by Mexican police, it now was in-
ternational. To seasoned G-men, it re-
called the days when John Dillinger and
Pretty Boy Floyd were at large.

Darkness came and the hunt continued
throughout Saturday night, but no trace
was found of Billy Cook nor of the slain
salesman’s car anywhere in the rugged,
desolate region between the border, and
the Gulf of California. i

Early Sunday morning, January 7, a
posse led by El Centro Police Chief
Woodward finally discovered Cook’s es-
cape car abandoned beside a dusty Mexi-
can road, 0 miles south of the border.
It was identified from the personal effects,
contained in a suitcase, of the owner—
Robert Dewey. Like the sedan belonging
to the missing Mosser family, the blue
1947 Buick had ‘been wiped clean of fin-
gerprints by the stir-wise killer.

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71


Tire marks on the road near the aban-
doned sedan led the officers to believe

that Cook might have flagged down a -

passing car and returned to the U. S. All
border patrols had been alerted for just
such a possibility even before Dewey’s
car was found. But Billy Cook failed to
appear. .

Monday came and the fugitive slayer
was still at large. Then, in dreadful repe-
tition of the pattern, two El Centro pros-
’ pectors were reported missing after
starting out on a trip to Mexico Satur-
day. afternoon. Had Cook added two more
victims to his crimson tally? G-men knew
it was entirely possible. ;

Working feverishly against‘ time, FBI
and police posses scoured the region on
both sides of the border; immigration
and customs officers searched every ve-
hicle, and planes and helicopters swept
the arid terrain. Yet, maddeningly, there
was no sign of Cook nor of his two more
probable victims.

Another day dragged by, and another,
without success. By the week’s end, the
manhunters had covered and re-covered
an area of approximately 500 square miles
in Northern Mexico and Southern Cali-
fornia, to no avail.

Reports reached the FBI meanwhile
that Cook had been seen in widely-scat-
tered areas as far east as Florida, but both
U.S. and Mexican officers were now con-
vinced that the fugitive had not slipped
back into the States after he abandoned
the slain salesman’s Buick below the
border.

Then, on Monday, January 15, the
12-day manhunt came to a dramatic cli-
max. On a tip from a mine paymaster
who said he had seen a man resembling
the squint-eyed ex-convict, Police Chiet
Francisco Kraus Morales, of Tiajuana,
led a posse 450 miles into Lower Cali-
fornia.

There, in the sleepy little fishing vil-
lage of Santa Rosalia on the east coast
of the peninsula, Kraus Morales and his
men took Billy Cook into custody.

Standing beside a parked sedan with
a California license plate as the Mexican
officers closed in on him, Cook was sur-
prised before he could draw the loaded
.32 stuffed in the belt of his jeans. He sur-
rendered without a struggle.'

Two other men climbed shakily out of
the California car; weeping with joy at
their deliverance. They were the missing
E] Centro prospectors, James Burke, and
Forrest Dameron, held captive by the
trigger-happy killer for more than a week.
Pale from 4d ordeal, they told how Cook
had hitched a ride with them late on Jan-
uary 6 near the spot where he -had aban-
doned the Seattle salesman’s car. As they
rode toward Ensenada, their car radio
droned a newscast reporting that Cook
was being hunted by police and giving
his description. At that instant, the hitch-
hiker pulled his gun and made them his
captives. :

“During most of the seven days we were
with him,” Burke said, “Cook kept the
gun in his lap with the trigger cocked.
At night when we camped out, he sat
with his back against a tree or rock with
his gun ready. We weré afraid to try to
escape. We couldn’t tell, because of his

72

right eye being open all the time, whether
he was asleep or not.”

Disarmed and handcuffed, Billy Cook
muttered, “I don’t remember killing any-
body. I don’t know any Mosser family.
I've been in a blackout since Christmas
night, when I got drunk with a man in
Blythe. After that I could have been any-
where until I woke up in a parked car
near San Felipe. The car wouldn’t run,
so I flagged down another car with those
two guys in it. I didn’t mean them no
harm.” .

Chief Kraus Morales led his prisoner
aboard a Mexican police plane and flew
him back to Tiajuana. There. he was
turned over to FBI agents, who had been
advised of the capture by radio. A second
plane brought the two kidnaped pros-
pectors, whom the G-men wanted to ques-
tion.

“At almost the very moment Cook was
being taken irito custody half a continent
away, police and firemen at Joplin, Mo,
finally located the bodies of Carl Mosser
and his family in an abandoned mine-
shaft only a block from Cook’s former
home.

Three-year-old Pamela Sue was
brought up first. Then came the bodies
of her two brothers, Ronald Dean and
Gary Carl, and at last those of’ their
mother and father. All had been shot to
death, the two youngest children through
the heart at close range. All except Mos-
ser had been bound and gagged first.

Back in the border city of ‘Tjajuana,
Billy Cook slumped in a faint as he was
led across the international boundary.
He was revived and rushed to jail in San
Diego to await a decision by Federal au-
thorities whether he would be held for
murder in California or turned over to
Oklahoma authorities for the mass ‘slay-
ing of the Mosser family.

On the following day, January 16, Cook
was arraigned before a U. S. Commis-
sioner on three Federal charges, princi-
pally with kidnaping the Mossers with
intent to do bodily harm. The other
charges were, flight to avoid prosecution
for the murder of Robert Dewey, and
flight to avoid prosecution in Oklahama
for robbery. — ;

Returned to jail without bail, Cook

was found to have dysentery and a fever .

of 101. A physician gave him a shot of
penicillin to make certain he survived
to stand trial.

Three days later, the sullen ex-convict
appeared before Federal Judge Paul }.
McCormick in San Diego and voluntarily
signed a waiver of extradition, clearing
the way for his removal to Oklahoma. He
told newspapermen he had been reading
the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in his
cell. He enjoyed the poetry, he said, be-
cause it “has adventure” and “deals with
death.”

As Judge McCormick ordered Cook's
return to Oklahoma City, Special Agent
E. C. Richardson of the FBI at San Diego
revealed that the prisoner had broken
after four days of steady grilling,and made
a full confession to the murders of the
five Mossers and Dewey, the Seattle sales-
man.

Richardson said Cook told of picking
up the Mossers near Oklahoma City when
he saw a car coming along with a man,

woman and three children in it, “stop-
ping them at gunpoint.”

Then began the weird trip that aim-
lessly carried the terrified Mossers for
hundreds of miles. through Oklahoma,
Texas, New Mexico, Arkansas and Mis-
souri during the four days they were
Cook’s captives.

“As they neared Joplin, Mrs. Mosser
became hysterical and began crying,
while the children started to scream,” the

- FBI agent said. “So Cook tied them all

up in the car except Mosser, who was
driving. On the outskirts. of Joplin they
passed a patrol car, and Mrs. Mosser
again became hysterical.

“Mosser stopped the car in a hurry,
Cook said, and he then began shooting

the family, killing them all. He drove.

into Joplin and dropped their bodies in
an old mineshaft.

“The Mosser car broke down near
Tulsa and Cook abandoned it, hitch-
hiking the rest of the way to Blythe,
Calif.”

Richardson said Cook told .of later
stopping Robert Dewey’s car and forcing
him to drive south through the California
desert toward Yuma, Ariz.

“Cook said Dewey was very nervous,”
the FBI agent continued, “and when he
dropped a cigaret while driving and
leaned over to pick it up, Cook shot him
because he said he thought Dewey was
reaching for a gun.”

Although Deputy Waldrip, of Blythe,

‘said Cook had bragged of killing seven

persons before he encountered Dewey,
the prisoner did not identify his other
two alleged victims.

On January 21, Billy Cook was re-
turned to Oklahoma City. Bétween 500
and 700 curious spectators crowded
around the Rock Island station to see him
walk from the train between two. U. S.
marshals to a waiting car. He was taken
to the Qklahoma County Jail.

Four days later, Cook was indicted by
a Federal grand jury on five counts of
kidnaping and murder separately cover-
ing each member of the slain Mosser fam-
ily. Arraigned before District Judge
Stephan S. Chandler, the confessed
slayer of six was held for trial. U. S. At-
torney Robert E. Shelton said Cook
would be tried on a single indictment
and the death penalty would be de-
manded.

On the same day Cook was indicted,
January. 25, a macabre aftermath of his
crimson swath was reported from New

Boston, Tex. There District Attorney *

Maxwell Welch announced that a 16-year-
old boy, who thought he could get away
with murder where Billy Cook failed,
had admitted he shot a 72-year-old
woman because it made him “feel good
to kill.”

Welch said the youth, a former resi-
dent of Boys’ ‘Town, Neb., signed a con-
fession admitting he stood behind Mrs.
Missouri Coleman, a distant relative, and
fired a .22 caliber bullet into her head
as she sat rocking before her fireplace.
He was charged with murder,

“Cook got caught,” the prosecutor
quoted the prisoner as saying, “ ‘but I fig-
ured I could kill and get away with it.’”

Like Billy Cook, he was wrong.

Payoff on
iC entiewed fror

local physician, was a
get to Lewis. He knee
quick examination,

“Bill has a bullet tl
he said. “He hasn’t mt
None at all if we dor
hospital in Piggot as fa

Conway got his car i
laid in the back seat,
holding his head and
ing to stop the flow «
made the trip to Pigg:
‘north, in record time.
Fauless called the offic
Wolf. Sheriff Wolf’ wa
to pick up two bad
Deputy Jim McCord
would contact Sgt. W
‘Arkansas State Police.
two would be in Nimn
could get there.

Sergeant Patrick is <
sive veteran of the state
before he had been
Investigation Division
quarters at “Jonesboro.
Nimmons. He happen
that night, and he an
got to Nimmons less
after Fauless’ phone cz

They found the
standing in groups a
store, shocked and co
the shooting of Bill Le
the old man for years
had, at some time or
ents of his kindness a

Fauless was the onl)
Lewis leave his store,
Piggot with Dr. Hol:
merchant. Fauless cou
formation, other than
or killers apparently
dark sedan at the tin

“It doesn’t seem pri
just drove through N
Lewis walking along
said. “This would eli
am sure nobody got o
ward, Believe me, it v
of those Chicago gan
way it happened. W
gunned old Bill dow:
on the spot.”

Pete Franklin offe
lightenment about th
“I didn’t see anything
shooting,” he said, “bi
before this I was on p
a dark sedan, which
Chevrolet, cruising
street. 1 thought it a
a strange car would
Usually cars on the
through town at 60 n
I saw this Chevrolet
barn, and [I am surc
there.”

Severa] others rem:
dark car driving slow!
Road just as darkn
settle over the town. }
was sure she had see:
roll slowly past the Le
+t o'clock.


_—
’

n

€

DIRE EIR NEE ORR NG RNARANE PARE LARK, WAICIT), Lance
is your friend.” ©

Sheepishly, Clement Ashford confirmed
what Ala Whitener had already deduced.
Not only did he admit seeing Tim
Warren in the bedroom, but also to over-
hearing a conversation between the illicit
lovers, during which Louise Meyers de-
clared her intention to poison her hus-
band. :

The case was now reasonably complete,
Ala Whitener sat down at her dining
room table and composed a letter to
Prosecuting Attorney Roy McGhee, at
his office in Greenville, county seat of
Wayne County.

In the remarkable document, she set
forth the sequence of events which led
her to a solution of the sinister murder
puzzle. She concluded with the request
that her brother’s body be exhumed and
a post mortem performed to recover
traces of the arsenate of lead. With this
letter, she forwarded the jelly jar of wine-
soaked earth which she believed would
yield a residue of the identical poison,

The astounded McGhee instantly com-

me evidence which’ clinched the case.
Ala Whitener was right. Her brother had
heen murdered. There was sufficient lead
arsenate administered to effect his death.

The redheaded widow was at once
taken into custody. Louise Meyers, after
a lengthy interrogation, finally confessed
to poisoning her husband. Her widow’s
share of the sale of the farm, she admitted,
was to provide the funds with which she
hoped to take her erstwhile lover away
to another part of the country.

Warren on the other hand, while ad-
mitting intimacies with Louise, vigor-
ously denied that he had been in any
way involyed in her husband’s death.
Moreover, his contention was upheld
subsequently, and he was completely ex-
onerated of any connection with the
crime,

Brought to trial in the month of Au-
gust, 1939, Louise Meyers dramatically
halted the proceedings with a tearful dec-
laration of her guilt. She was sentenced
to serve a life term in the state peniten-
tiary at Jefferson City, Mo., where she
is today.-

“Pll Live By the Gun!”

[Continued join page 9}

father, a smelter worker, abandoned the
boy and his seven brothers and sisters
in a deserted mine cave near Joplin, Mo.
After the authorities discovered them
there, most of the children found foster
parents, but no one would adopt Billy,
a small, ugly child with a deformed right
eyelid. It appeared the eye was never
closed—even in sleep.

The county put him in a boarding
home, where Billy: threw tantrums be.
cause he couldn’t have a bicycle like other
kids. At 11, he quit school and defied
truant officers to make him go back.
Hauled before a judge, he sullenly asked
to be sent to the reformatory.

A married sister got him out a year
later, and he reacted to this kindness by
robbing a Joplin taxi driver of $11. For
this crime, Billy went back to the reforma-
tory for five years.

Released again at 17, he soon was
caught trying to steal a car. This time
he drew a five-year term in the state peni-
tentiary. There he won a dubious distinc-
tion among the convicts by hitting a
fellow inmate oyer the head with a base-
ball bat. Somewhere between his two
five-year terms, a tattoo artist had em-
broidered the knuckles of his left hand
with the legend which later was to catch
up with him.

When Billy Cook walked out from
behind prison bars in 1950 forthe third
time in his short life, he was 21—a small,
heavy-shouldered, brooding youth with
an undershot chin and an outlook on
life which was as deformed as his right
eyelid. In the myopic view of the squint-
eyed little-ex-convict, the world had done
him a grievous wrong and it was his duty
to seek retribution.

, '

Fresh out of stir, Billy looked up his
71-year-old father in the Joplin shack
where the elder Cook was living on a pen-
sion.

“It’s my turn to get even,” he told the
old man. “From now on, I’ll live by the
gun—and the hell with everybody!”

Questioned by G-men, the father
vaguely recalled his son had intended
hitchhiking to California. Beyond that,
the old man had no idea where Billy was.

Acting on this tip, the FBI alerted its
California agents to concentrate on
checking likely hideouts for the hardened
young ex-convict. Word was passed along
to local police officers in hundreds of
Golden State communities. :

While the day-and-night hunt was
going on, the FBI found two more wit-
nesses who had seen the squint-eyed
young man believed to be Cook with his
hostages, the Mosser family, during the
wild hegira which ended with the dis-
covery of their bloodstained sedan.

One witness was a filling station oper-
ator in Randlett, Okla., only 20 miles
above Wichita Falls, Tex.,. where the
open struggle between Carl Mosser and
the gunman had taken place. The blue
sedan had pulled into the Randlett sta-
tion for gas half an hour later on Satur-
day night, but neither Mosser, his wife
nor the children had made any outcry.

In Winthrop, Ark., over 200 miles to.

the east, Mrs. Rufus Smith positively
identified a picture of Billy Cook as the
young man who had been in her cafe
the following Monday with a man be.
lieved to be Mosser. But Cook's compan-
ion had given no hint that he was being
held captive.

The stories of the two witnesses in dif-
ferent states helped to explain the high
mileage rolled up on the speedometer
of the Mosser car when it was found.
Somewhere in the Texas-Oklahoma-Ark-
ansas triangle, the G-men felt sure, the
killer had disposed of his five probable

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69


victims. On the chance that Cook had
returned to his home town of Joplin, near
the Oklahoma-Missouri border, the offi-
cers began an intensive search of that
area.

Sixteen hundred miles to the west, in
the little desert town of Blythe, Calif.,
just across the Arizona line, another dra-
matic chapter in the case was in the
making. '

On the morning of Saturday, January
6, Deputy Sheriff Homer Waldrip re-
ceived one of the FBI circulars for the
arrest of Billy Cook which carried the
ex-convict’s picture. The husky, 27-year-
old Riverside County officer instantly
recognized the photo. Billy Cook was
none other than the young man who had

worked in Blythe, until two weeks ago,
as dishwasher in. the same cafe where
Deputy Waldrip’s wife was employed!

Waldrip recalled that Cook had come
to Blythe for the first time several months
back, and had lived there, on and off,
until just before Christmas. He had dis-
appeared December 23 and failed to
show up for work at the cafe the next
morning. His job had been promptly
filled and no one-had since heard from
him,

The sullen, moody dishwasher with the
peculiar right eyelid had never told any-
one in Blythe of his background or
origins, and his silence now was under-
standable. Billy Cook had traveled 1,600
miles after getting out of prison to put

WHAT. IS YOUR

This is your chair.
Be a juryman and read the
“testimony” in a true case,

then decide...

BY STANLEY J. MEYER

No one remembered how the discussion
started. It was just one of those things.
Someone happened to mention that Officer
Black, who was standing at the bar, was a

, good pistol,shot. Immediately someone else

spoke up and said that Officer Egbert was
a better marksman.

Since both policemen were in the saloon
it seemed only natural to settle the ques-
tion immediately. Everyone retired to a
rear room and a few minutes later a crude
target hung on the back wall that faced the
alley.

Neither cop wanted an advantage, so
they both agreed to use the same gun. They
took turns blazing away at the target until
everyone agreed that the contest was a
draw. Then. they went back to the bar to
celebrate the event.

A few minutes later the front doors burst
open and a young man rushed in, shouting
that there was a dead man in the alley. The
two officers investigated. They found the
man lying under:a small hole in the rear
wall. There was absolutely no doubt that
he had been killed by a slug fired during
the target practice. Both policemen were
arrested and charged with manslaughter.

When the case came to trial, it created
quite a stir. The State charged both men
with the crime on the ground that one of
them for certain had fired the fatal shot.
The defense admitted that one of the men
was guilty, but not both. Therefore, if
Officers Black and Egbert were both pun-

70.

_ if they brought out a verdict of not guilty

VERDICT

ished, the State would be guilty of punish-
ing an innocent man.

For a while it looked as though the jury
would need the wisdom of Solomon to
bring out a fair verdict. The problem was
clear, but the solution was hard to find.

First, the jurors had to consider the fact
that a man had been killed, and the guilty
party had to be punished. They knew for
certain that one of the two men on trial
was the guilty party, but which, one was
it? They had also to consider what the
defense attorney had told them when he
‘summed up ‘the case. If they brought out
a verdict of guilty against both men, they
could Be absolutely certain that they were
sending an innocent man to jail. Similarly,

for both men, they were allowing a crime
to go unpunished, and they were setting
a guilty man free.

Place yourself in a jury -seat and try to
figure ‘out a fair verdict. Consider all the
angles and then decide if both men should
be found guilty, or if the verdict should
be not guilty. These are the only two ver-
dicts that can be considered, because to
render a verdict against just one of the
officers might be doing an even graver in-
justice; an innocent man. might be pun-
ished, and a guilty man set free. - ;

After you've made a decision, turn to
page 78 and see how. it compares with the
verdict that was brought in by the actual
jury; (

,

as much distance as possible between
himself and his past. Somehow he had
found his way back east to his old haunts
and into far more serious trouble than
ever before.

Fleeing from this predicament, where
would Cook be likely to go? Deputy Wal-
drip had a hunch he might have returned
to Blythe, this time with his own trans-
portation. For Billy had often expressed
resentment over the fact that he couldn’t
afford a car. With a gun as the means, he
prabably would have ames one.

Waldrip strapped on his own service
revolver, got into his county car and set
out to canvass the motels in and around
Blythe. At the first two places he checked,
the deputy found a dozen out-of-state
cars and had their owners described to
him by the managers, but none could con-
ceivably be Cook. -

Ata third motel, Waldrip got the same
answer. Then the proprietor added, “But
there’s a young chap staying here who
doesn’t have a car. Checked in last night
and said he was traveling light.”

The guest’s name meant nothing to the
deputy, and he asked, “What's he look
like?”

“Oh, about 21 or so—short, dark and
wiry. He has a bum right eye of some
kind, The lid droops down.”

That was enough for Waldrip. Hand
on his gun, he strode across the auto
court and up to the door of the unit
where the suspect was staying. He lifted
his left hand and knocked. .

There was no response and Waldrip
moved to turn the knob. Suddenly the
door flew open and a gun jabbed into his
ribs before he could draw.

Billy Cook, clad only jin a red flannel
shirt, spit in fhe deputy’s face. “Get in
here and stay put!” he snarled.

Holding the gun on Waldrip, Cook
stripped him of his pistol and ammuni-
tion belt, then stood ‘him in a corner
while the ex-convict slipped into his jeans
and moccasins and caught up his leather
jacket with his free hand.

“Now, get out to your “car,” Cook
snapped. “I’m going with you. One yelp
and you're a dead dog!”

Cook marched the deputy out of the
bungalow, striding close beside him with
the gun in his side, and across the court
to the standing patrol car. ,

Waldrip slipped in behind the wheel,
the gun still on him, and Cook climbed
in at his side and slammed the door.

“Head for the border,” the gunman
growled. ‘And no tricks!”

The deputy started the motor and did
as he was told, pointing the car toward
Mexico, some 75 miles to the south.

As the miles rolled by and the pave-
ment gave way to gravel, Waldrip spoke
for the first time. “How about a cigaret

kid?” he asked softly.

Cook reached into his shirt pocket with
one hand, fished out a smoke and gave
it to the driver. The deputy lit it from
a lighter on the dashboard. * x

““T got nothin’ against you,” the gun-
man said unexpectedly. “I worked with
your wife at the joint. She was nice to me.
So: I'll give ya a break. But do as I say,
see?” .

Waldrip knew he was riding with sud-
den death. He nodded in silence.

Cook lit a cigaret for !

‘ing his gun tightly on tl

came talkative.

“If you was anybod)
have it,” he sneered.
wouldn't. I just killed se
and I'd just as soon kil

Waldrip didn’t ask fc
kid volunteered some o

“Why, I wiped out a v
place back in Oklahon
‘Tossed all five bodies
where nobody’ll find ’e:
comes.” He laughed ha

The deputy’s conti
minded the gunman tl
too much. From that p«

tight mouth until the c

a little town just ab«
border.

There he ordered W:
and stop. The deputy
forced him, at gunpoir
the desert while he bor
foot with a length of r
of the patrol car. For «
moment he stood ove:
leaving him lying help
at the edge of the ro:
back into the car, gun
roared off toward the |

The kid was on his w
with his own transp«
patrol car, with the gi
sides and the big red
was too hot for him to
to swap it for another
he expected.

Seven miles from v
Waldrip, the kid caug
1947 Buick sedan, car
State license plates. Th
along ahead of him, tr:
direction, its lone occu
young man at the whe

This was a setup, ‘
the best of it. Switchi
his police car, Cook «
blue sedan and forced
edge of the desert road
around, puzzled at be
reached for his license

Cook slipped out o!
motor still running, :
to the sedan. He yan)
door with one hand ;
other. The startled dri
barrel of a shiny .32.

“You're not a cop!”

Cook’s left hand :
across the face and b
the driver’s mouth. T!
door and shoved the g
ribs, lifting his wallet

“Wise guy,” he snat
finger, chum. Get rolli
goes off!”

A mile ahead, at the
with Route 80, Cook
to turn left toward Yw
completing the turn, t

. for the burning stub c

his trembling lips. It !
he bent to pick it ur

That move was his |
right shoulder droppe
crashing into his tem;

The kid seized the
off the ignition as t
forward, blood spurt


ft
ws

Lp Gin 7 EB

Lor

S, Victoriano, His,

Roy GOINS, a commercial fisherman
living at Courtland, California, was
fishing in Steamboat Slough, just off the
Sacramento River, on Monday after-
noon, June 2lst, 1948, when a floating
object aroused his curiosity.

He had first noticed it several days
previously, after it had drifted into a
small,cove. Now, seeing it still there,
he had an impulse to find out what it
was, and turned his boat in that direc-
tion.

Bringing the small craft alongside the

object, which appeared to be a cloth-

covered bundle a little over two feet
in length, he reached out with a boat
hook and pulled it toward him. It
seemed heavy and compact, rising slug-
gishly each time the pressure of his
pole submerged it.

Abruptly, as he became aware of a

peculiar odor; he stopped and stared
suspiciously at the bundle. Then he

» reached down, caught hold of the cord
the’

that bound it, and hauled it. into
boat. ?

Wondering what could be inside a
parcel of that size and weight, he re-
moved .several loops of insulated elec-
tric wire, unwrapped two muddy, dark

. gray blankets, and then stood staring
in horror at the thing he hdd uncovered...

It was the torso of a woman, with

the head, arms and legs missing.

36 CO

gassed CA (Sacrmento) February 25,

(Above) Authorities were faced with the tremendous task

of dragging the American River for clues. One victim, the
police learned, had drifted no less than twenty-five or
thirty miles, from one end of the county to the other

Goins turned the boat around and
roared off at full engine speed toward
Courtland, two and a half miles away.
Arriving: there, he telephoned the
sheriff’s office at Sacramento, some
twenty-odd miles farther upstream.

Undersheriff Harry Knoll, Deputy
Sheriff John McVeigh, and Deputy Cor-
oner Louis McGinnis responded, Goins
related how he had made the discovery,
but he could give them little additional
information. He only knew that he
had observed the floating object several
days before he decided to investigate it.

McGinnis examined the corpse and
estimated that it had been in the water

two weeks or more. The head had been °

cut off near the shoulders; the arms
and legs at the sockets.

There were no discernible wounds, nor
were there any other noticeable marks

. the main channel of the river.

or deformities of an identifying nature.

Knoll and McVeigh suspected that the
body had drifted into the cove from
The
murder scene might be near by, but
since the water was high at that time
of the year, they believed the strong
current might have ‘carried the corpse
many miles downstream, perhaps from
some distant point on one of the several
rivers that empty into the broad Sacra-
mento.

The deputy coroner removed the
corpse to the county morgue, where an
autopsy was to be performed imme-
diately.

Knoll and McVeigh, aided by Deputies
Charles Hammett, George Munizich and
other officers, searched along the banks
of the river and questioned some fifteen
families of fishermen and ranch work-

by George Clark

“If he murdered both those girls, the lives of other wo-

men are in danger while he is at large,” Sheriff McVeigh

oa

. told the frightened neighbor. “It’s your duty to tel]’’


conceal

ites on

guilty
recom-
anglais
xtreme

tece ene
the tn-

er you
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yuldn’t
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ourned
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1other.
oming
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what

o

imself,
xy ina
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iuse |
2 diffi-

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which
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Oo you
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tenant
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hinese
could
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1ether
nanie,
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orkers

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five
quar-
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amily

Knoll

Much
Va

crete Pipe Company, where employment
officials identified ““Corrly” as Victor Cor-
rales.

“That's the fellow you're talking
about,” one of them said. “Came here five
tnonths ago after working for a Chinese
rancher. According to our records, he
still lives in Brighton. He’s a good worker,
but he’s a strange one. Always keeps to
himself, never associates with the other
workers.”

“Any particular reason?”

“They kidded hin: about being some-
thing of a Romeo. Some of the other
workers say. he’s got a couple of cuties
while his wife and six kids are living in
Broderick, over in Yolo County.”

Knoll reported back to me and we de-
cided to do some more checking. The
first thing we checked was the location of
the Gower garage in relation to the
American River. We were satisfied that
the distance of a mile and a quarter could
be covered easily by a man, even. if he was
carrying a dismembered corpse.

The next day, Monday morning, Knoll
and McVeigh went back to the pipe com-

any to pick up Corrales for questioning,
but a bookkeeper said Corrales had not
yet clocked in. “He’s late; should’ve been
in an hour ago,” he said.

Fearing something had gone awry,
Knoll and McVeigh hurried straight for
the garage abode in Brighton. They
rapped on the door, then pushed it open.
Clad only in underwear, a man was sitting
up in bed, blinking at the sunlight that
streamed in from the open doorway.

“Victor Corrales?” Knoll said.

ee man grinned. “Yes. I guess I
oversleep.”

Knoll identified himself and McVeigh,
then said, “Corrales, are you married?”

“Sure. Wife, six children. Only my
wife left me three years ago, and took the
young ones,”

“Have you had any other women living
with you sitice then?”

“Me? No! What for the questions?”

“Get your clothes on, Corrales. We're
taking you to the office for question-
ing.’

Corrales obeyed and went along doc-
ilely, smiling and unperturbed.

In our office we told him what we knew
about him having two different mistresses
on the Chinese ranch and in the garage.
He seemed to mull it over, then, still
smiling, he agreed we were right.

He admitted living with a woman
while working on the ranch; he admitted
the quarrels with her, and he said her
name was Alberta Gomez. He said he
met her last year in Irapuato, Mexico,
and had smuggled her into the United
States.

But that was all Corrales admitted.
Alberta Gomez, he insisted, left him last
summer without notice. “No note, no
word, no nothing. I haven’t seen her since,
and I don’t care,” he said.

We pressed him about the second
woman atid got nowhere, so I ordered
him fingerprinted, mugged and held for
investigation.

Now we really set to work. We went
to the garage and gave it as thorough a
going over as anything ever got. The
place actually was a shanty, yet it con-
tained an electric refrigerator, a fairly
new kitchen table and a set of chairs,
a small coal stove and a metal bed-
stead. ,

Deputies McVeigh and Munizich took
a pick and carefully pried up ten boards
from the floor and turned them over.
They found what we had hoped to find—
bloodstains. Or what appeared to be

bloodstains, We'd let the experts deter-
mine it for us. And four inches below the
planked floor the ground was spotted
with similar stains.

On the table in the far corner of the
room we found a large kitchen knife and
there was an ax resting on pegs in, the
plank walk. From a crude shelf near the
bed, Knoll picked up a heavy hammer
with a broken handle.

Knoll and I were exchanging satisfied
glances when suddenly Munizich ex-
claimed, “Hey, take a look at this!”

Munizich had an electric light socket
in his hands, and when he crossed the
room with it we saw an inch of ‘double
wire, with rough cut edges, extending
from it. And we knew what had excited
Munizich,. This was the same kind of wire
found on torso No. 1.

Corrales was ‘brought into my office
later in the afternoon. He was still wear-
ing the docile smile. We showed him
what we found, and we told him what we
thought. The smile never altered. He said
mildly, “Yes, sure. I killed her.”

“Who did you kill?” I asked.

“Maria Pulido.”

“What about Alberta Gomez?”

“No. She left me. I don’t know where
she is.” :

I didn’t press him about the first mur-
der. It could wait a while longer. “All
right, Corrales, then tell us how you
killed Maria Pulido, and why.”

He went back to the beginning, to May,
1948, when he first met Maria Pulido in
Irapuato, Mexico, and won her interest
with alluring promises of a rich life in the
United States. If she would be his mis-
tress, he would smuggle her across the
border and treat her to a life of luxury
here in California.

Maria Pulido, 22 years younger than
Corrales, was decoyed by visions of pleas-
ure to a grim fate at the hands of a man
who liked his mistresses small. She and
Corrales crossed the line at Calexico, rode
to Los Angeles by bus, and then came
directly to Sacramento, where they stayed
for several days in a hotel in the lower
end of town.

“One day I came back to our room
from work,” Corrales went on, “and she’s
not there. I found her in a bar room
drunk. I called a taxicab and took her
home to my little house for the first time.
I changed her dress for a robe and put her
to bed where she slept for about an
hour.” *

The corner of Corrales’ mouth twitched.
He stopped smiling. “When she woke up
I was sitting on the edge of the bed be-

‘side her. She wanted to know where she

was, and I told her this was the home I
had fixed up for her.

“She got up and took one look around
the room and didn’t like it. She called it a
dirty old shack and tried to slap me. We
scuffled some and she got sort of mussed
up. That made her even madder, and she
walked away crying, ‘You're nothing but
an old man.’ Me—me! An old man.

“Those were her last words. For then
I flared up at her and reached over to a
wall shelf for a hammer and hit her on
the head. When she fell back on the bed,
I hit her again.”

The rest of Corrales’ confession was
narrated in the same cool, detached, cold
blooded manner in which he had disposed
of his headless mistress.

He decided, he said, to get rid of the
body of Maria in the American River.
But when he found the corpse was too
heavy to carry, he calmly went about the
business of severing his mistress’ head
and legs.

These he left lying on the cabin floor
while he stuffed the torso in a gunny

Yes sir, when he cal
favorite meal by brand
had better serve it—or else.
he lisps for that prepared «
so fond of you’d better n
switching or there will be
sure enough. |

We start learning branc
most as soon as We can Sé
and from then on we dep
brand language to get
what we want. Every ad\
we read—every radio p
listen to—prepares us bett
the most of America’s wot
tem of producing and c
goods identified by Branc

And by the way—fron
chair on—every time we cl
ject brand names. we kee
on its toes—trying with al
how and resources to gly
we like best.

Band Ne
*  Seundatlo

@ 119 West 57th Street, NewYc
@ 4 non-profit educational f.


AWRENCE GORDON ROBERTS

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ting informa-
lly, acetedron
sed by psychi-
get their pa-
bited state of

ument Could
uistake
; et that
mace with
tburg, Mass.

. very natural
tle more than
circumstance

‘ many detec-
fork City ?—

clothesmen in

>

*,ind the shape

~ scene provid-

, leduced from
In, Neb.

ferent shapes
»m which the
ounded blots,

or may be
officers noted
iall drops in-
have dripped
ng. A glance
or leading to
id the slayer,
ig. He had
1, closed

carrying re-
they still un-
fore the war?

How much do they earn a week ?—Cyn-
thia Willis, Birmingham, Ala,

A. The London constabulary continues
as ever unarmed. Salaries average about

$25 a week.

Q. I've always understood officers
picking up a revolver where X marks
the spot are very careful not to obliterate
fingerprints. Now I’m told experts rarely
can develop a usable print anyway.
What's the real low-down ?—Jack Hen-
derson, Toledo, O.

A. The care taken in handling a re-
volver at the crime scene is to avoid
destroying any possible prints. But this
is mainly a precautionary move not to
overlook any clue, however unlikely.
Actually, in the majority of instances
fingerprints on a gun butt are too

* smudged to be of much value.

Q. How much money did the Broad-
hurst widow in Oregon get from the mur-
der of her husband, for which she was
sentenced to a life prison term ?—Helene
Damon, Scranton, Pa,

A. When Willis David Broadhurst’s
will was probated it was found the entire
estate of close to $150,000 had been be-
queathed to his wife, Gladys Elaine,
whom he had married five months before.
The account of his murder was carried in
the February, 1947, issue of STARTLING
DETECTIVE under the title Ambush. The
victim’s three sisters contested the will,
finally reaching a settlement which netted
the widow $51,000.

Q. What was the name of the Har-
vard professor who turned out to be a
murderer and was hanged many years
ago ?—Curious, Rochester, N. Y.

A. John W. Webster was hanged on
Friday, August 30, 1850. The Harvard
chemistry and mineralogy professor was
convicted of slaying Dr. George Park-
man, a creditor. Parkman's dissected and
partly destroyed remains were identified
through his false teeth, found uncon-
sumed in the furnace of the Harvard
Medical School.

sack, slung it over his shoulder and plod-
ded across busy Folsom Boulevard, down
the Cutter Ranch Road and across the
ranch land of his ex-employer until he
reached the bank of the American River.
There, under cover of darkness, he
dumped the sack’s contents into the
water.

He returned to the shack, gathered up
Maria's head and limbs and started out
again, sack over-his shoulder, over the
same mile and a quarter to the same river
bank.

The next day, Corrales said, he burned
some of Maria’s garments in the garage
stove. The mattress, splattered with
blood, and Maria’s other things he burned
outside in the yard.

We took this smiling slayer back to
his “luxurious” love nest and he recon-
structed the crime for us. From the ga-
rage cabin we went to the banks of the
American River where without any diffi-
culty Corrales found. the spot from
whence he threw the human pieces into
the water.

For one who had come to this spot in
the dark of the night, this little man had
accurately found it by day. This accuracy
paid off in excellent evidence.

After deputies returned Corrales to jail,
Constable Ellis Barry and his brother
Seth, of Yolo County dragged the river,
and only a few yards away from where
Corrales had X‘d the spot they fished out
a waman’s head and right leg.

The parts were taken to the morgue,
compared to the rest of Maria Pulido’s
body and found to match.

The next morning we pressed Corrales
about’ Alberta Gomez, but he refused to
say anything more than that the girl had
left him.

Harry Knoll shook his head and said,
“Victor, we don’t believe you. You killed
her, didn't you?”

ORRALES merely shrugged and
once more that peculiar grin ap-
peared. What we thought apparently did
not perturb him any.
Knoll said, “It’s not only us, Victor.
The public thinks you killed Alberta Go-
mez, and so do the newspapers.”

Oddly, that remark erased Corrales’ ,

smile. His eyes darkened and he averted
his eyes from the gaze of the men be-

fore him. He seemed to be making a.

decision.
“T killed her, too,” he said finally.
Willingly, now, he described how and
why he killed and dismembered Alberta
Gomez. The confession was virtually the
same as his first one. Alberta, too, had

. derided and ridiculed him, throwing his

age into his face, so he killed her, dis-
membered her with the same instruments
he later used on Maria.

The only difference in the crime was
the use of electric wire with which to tie
the torso in its blanket and the selection
of the Sacramento River as a disposal
point.

Corrales was charged with both mur-
ders in complaints issued by District At-
torney John Q. Brown.

On March 14, 1949, Corrales went on
trial for his life in the court of Superior
Judge Raymond T. Coughlin, and five
days later, after hearing the clinching
evidence against the man, the jury
brought in a verdict of guilty. There was
no recommendation for a life term.

On March 21, Judge Coughlin passed
sentence—death in the gas chamber of
the San Quentin Prison.

(The names Joe Campbell, Mrs. Rose Gower and
George and Linda Corbin are fictitious to protect

the identity of pert. tnnocently involved in the
investigation.—_T he Editor.)

\

See

ae

.

i

Ae

August, SEPT., 1949-STARTLING

ond

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He’s bu
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°

killed Breton to get back the notes on the

illegally sold crops, and Dumais because
he was a witness, the man just laughed.
But Deschenes found Lebel’s finger-
prints on the stock of the antique pistol
and Dr. Roussel reported it was blood of
Breton’s type that had stained the man’s
“lothes. On August 5 Magistrate Alex-
ider Michaud held him for trial in
‘minal -Assizes.
Lebel faced Judge Romeo Langlais and
a jury in Riviere du Loup on February 7,

1949. The Crown, represented by Jean
Paul Berube, K. C., contended the killer
had twice phoned Breton on the murder
day, pretending he could raise the money
and retrieve his notes.

“The bank manager made an appoint-
ment to take Lebel to where he could get
the cash,” Berube told the jury, “and thus

sealed not only his own fate but that of

M. Dumais, an innocent taxi driver.

‘Lebel had no way of raising cash; he

could get his notes back only by murder,

to which he resorted in order to conceal
the illegal sale of his crops.”

The jury was out only ten minutes on
February 18. They found Maurice guilty
of first degree murder without recom-
mendation of mercy. Judge Langlais
sentenced the killer to pay the extreme
penalty for his crime by hanging.

(The names Alfred Desrochers, Martin Eggers
and Raoul Vincent are fictitious to protect the
identity of persons innocently involved in the tn-
vestigation.—-The Editor.)

DISPOSED:
Two
HEADLESS
MISTRESSES

[Continued from page 9]

New York, all from people who had
read press association stories about our
No. 2 torso and wanted to know whether
it was their daughter, wife or sister.

We studied the descriptions and char-
acteristics they furnished, compared them
to those we already knew by heart, and
the results still added up to no runs, no
hits.

The afternoon mail brought something
that did offer possibilities—a letter from
a Sacraniento woman who had cut a page
cut of a catalog and pinned it to her
missive.

“T saw in the Sacramento Bee the pic-

re of the bracelet found on the torso

‘tim,’ she wrote. “It is identical to the

e I have clipped from the 1949 catalog
of the National Belias Hess, Inc.. firm in
North Kansas City, Mo.” .

The catalog photograph and text de-
scription of the bracelet indeed matched
the one in our possession.

True, we had checked out all the Sacra-

mento stores selling costume jewelry, but -

here, perhaps, was a means of reaching
out of town stores handling this particular
type of bracelet. I sent out a letter to the
company, asking it to check records of
shipments to stores within a 25-mile
radius of Sacramento.

The reply came five days later, and it
was with mentally crossed fingers that I
tore open the air mail envelope. I took in
the paragraphs almost at a glance and I
groaned. The company wanted to coop-
erate but it was unable to give us the
information we wanted. »

Was this second torso killing to wind
up, along with the first one, in the limbo
of unsolved crimes?

This day-to-day rise and fall of hopes
and efforts was Wearing, even though I
fully realized from twenty-five years’ ex-
perience as a peace officer that that is the
way many police cases are . olved—by
unremitting, wearisome footwork.

A few days later, at 7 p. m, January
15, 1949, a tall, slender man about 30
years old came into the office. And as
Knoll and I were off duty he was referred
to Deputy Thomas Howard when he said,
“I want to talk to somebody abour the

30 case.”

le looked uneasy when Howard mo-
_ Jed him toa chair and said, ‘Go ahead,
mister.”

“Look,” he began, “my name’s Joe
Campbell, but I don’t want anybody tc
know I came here with this information.

78

Y’see, a friend of the family told me

~ about it, not expecting I’d repeat it, let
. alone to the police.”

“Told you what?”

“Something which might tie up with
these two torso cases.” é

“Both of them?”

“The two of ’em. Only you got to prom-
ise to keep my name and my friend’s name
out of the papers. The publicity won't do
her business any good. Y’see, she’s got
charge of a nursery, and if people thought
things like murder happen in her neigh-
borhood they’d pull their children out of
there faster’n you can imagine.”

“I can’t promise you anything,” How-
ard said. “All I can do is tell the sheriff
what you request, and it will be up to
him.”

Campbell looked disappointed. “I hope
he’ll do it. I don’t want any trouble.”

“Suppose you tell me what it’s all

“about,” Howard said.

“Well, this friend’s name is Mrs. Rose
Gower. She lives in Brighton, a couple
blocks from the Sacramento city limits.”

He stopped suddenly, fished a cigaret out .

of his pocket and lighted it.

“In the back of her house,” he con-
tinued, “is a garage which she’s renting
out as living quarters to some man. It's a
shack if you ask me, but this fellow must
be satisfied because he’s been there quite
a while. Pays her $10 a. month.”

ce HAT’S so unusual about it, about
this man? What’s his name?”
“That’s what I’m getting to. Mrs.
Gower doesn’t know his name; he always
pays his rent in cash. He moved in last
May, with a young woman supposed to
be his wife.” é :
“Supposed to be?” ;
“Well, that’s the way Mrs. Gower put
it. The woman was much younger than
he, and Mrs. Gower took it for granted
they were married. About a month later
from her kitchen window she saw this

guy burning a mattress and some other

things in the yard. And then, a couple
days afterwards, he moved out.”

Campbell took a final drag on the ciga-
ret, then dropped it and ground it out
with his heel. “That’s all there is,” he
said.

“You mean this Mrs. Gower thinks this
fellow might be responsible for the torso
killings?” .

“That’s what she’s afraid of, but she’s
got no real proof. You'll have to find out
for yourself.”

“We will,’ Howard said. “Thanks.
Somebody will see her in the morning.”

Somehody did. After I got Howard’s
report, | asked Harry Knoll to check.

“As it turned out, Knoll found Mrs.
Gower to be an acquaintance. When he
explained he was calling for information
regarding her tenant’s suspicious activi-
ties, she reacted sharply.

“T don’t want—I can’t afford to get
mixed up in publicity of this kind, Mr.
Knoll. I--takiny care of chil—”

Knoll said, “I understand, Mrs. Gower.

But it’s your duty to tell us whatever you
_ know about this case.” '

“T guess you're right. It would be fool-
ish, not to tell you all I know, wouldn’t
it? Well, this man—I don’t even know his

. name, Mr. Knoll—is about 45 or so, me-

dium height and slender. After he burned
all that stuff last June, he said he was
going to Arizona to visit his mother.
Didn’t know whether he was coming
back to Sacramento and suggested I rent
the garage to somebody else.

“He went away, like he said, but he
came back again, Mr. Knoll. Came back
December 14, and rented the garage
again.” Mrs. Gower took a breath and
said significantly: “Now, here’s what
makes it seem peculiar, Mr. Knoll.

“A couple days after he settled himself,
he came home late in the evening in a
taxicab. He had a woman with him, and
she was either sick or drunk because I
saw him and the driver both having diffi-
culty getting her out of the cab.” -

“Then what?” Knoll asked, when Mrs.
Gower stopped and gave him a look which

plainly said, “What do you think of

that?”
“The next day,” she went on, “he was

. in the yard burning another mattress and

other things. Just as he did last June.”

“Did you see the woman afterward?”

“No. And I never asked him about her,
either, Mr. Knoll.”

“What about the man himself? Do you
know who he is, where he works, any-
thing at all about him?”

Mrs. Gower knew only that her tenant
still lived in the garage and that he re-
cently had worked for a near-by Chinese
rancher.

Knoll decided to find the Chinese
rancher first so as to learn all he could
about the man before he approached him
directly,

There was no difficulty in locating the

Chinese vegetable grower who had a’

number of field workers in his employ. He
recognized the description of Mrs. 'Gow-
er’s tenant when Knoll mentioned the
landlady’s name.

“Him, sure!” he exclaimed. “Corrly.”

The rancher did not know whether
Corrly was the man’s given or surname.
Names made little difference to the
rancher as he paid his seasonal workers
in cash. .

“Corrly. worked for me about five
months. So did his wife. But they quar-
reled too much—all the time, so I had to
tell them to leave. Bad temper, that man.
Bad. Once he broke her arm because she
sent money from her wages to her family
in Mexico. That made him mad.”

“About how old is his wife?” Knoll
asked.

The Chinese declined to guess. “Much
younger than him,” he said. “Much. You
trying, maybe, to find him?” “

a know where to reach him,” Knoll
said.

“Oh. Well, he works, now for the pipe
company, you know.”

“T didn’t know,” Knoll said. And when
he left he went directly to the United Con-

obags

gM TON OR RG WE DT MPDPUURIAR NEE Mech PANES

S a neighbor, Mrs,
Doris Hutchins, who knew them quite
‘well and I think she can give you a good
™ deal of information.” Sia aw te at
» Porter and Hammond were soon talk. |:
ing with Mrs; Hutchir 5,' a ‘few doors
down the street, Mrs. H ttchins told how
his oil ¢om

gO as well as
id. “I got a letter
bout three weeks ago in |*

they were coming back

_ to California and’ ghe hoped to see’me

‘ soon,” ‘ ' aia

_ "Is Mr. Cole a small man?” Hammond
«inquired, ©.) i tbe

“Well, not big and not small,” Mrs,

Hutchins replied. “1g call him /about

medium-sized,” : MATE

-- “Do' you happen to know anything

~ about Mrs: Cole’s brother, a man named

Patterson?” 64) >

~ “She nodded. “I met him a couple of

times at the Cole place, Ted, they:called

believe he was" rooming some-

Patterson for pi

Mrs.) Hutchins pondered. “Let’s’ see.
_ He has dark hair and dark eyes, He’s |.
_ pretty slender, and not much taller than
‘line, I think he’s a few years younger
hn she,” SANE ,
© Porter and Hammond exchanged
meaning glances.'Ted Patterson sound
-_ed much like a man who mi
size 7 shoe and

“Why don't you talk to Bryan Cole’s
' brother?” Mrs. Hutchins was
“His name js A.C.

ed. That explained

two addresses, "The

their furniture and

belongings to: the brother’ on ® Hicks

Street.’ Porter and.

Mrs. Hutchins, and Inves
"then guided them to the
& ‘ole: it a it rads a . : :

@ COLE WAS ABLE to add to. the |
background information about his
Py? brother and Alline,. Bryan Cole’s first
ian wife, he said, had’ died years before
fe and he had Alline in’ 1935,
re sizeable difference | “trator erie:
om in: th had gotten alo. ~ homa family a
oy rothacekncid of “he  childre -hard luck, it yas not caused by
discord between’ them at all. “Alline, | Id was against the words the . world, but’ by’ ‘William Cook
(Continued on page 64). Luck”’ ta ed his ‘fingers, himse Riperapee ee Hs poe:


&
ee

‘ag

MENT OF CORRECTIONS .
LIFORNIA °

ATE PRISON
AN QUENTIN ©
nine

‘

EMD ION ris 18 y

Pt ae

WHO? ee Bey

é PRS ID Hee ty.

About to start on its weird death journey, the body of “Mad |

Dog” Billy Cook is removed from San Quentin Prison after his
December 12th execution. First stop was Comanche, Okla-
homa, where the corpse drew over ‘15,000 visitors during
three days. Many of the curiosity seekers brought children,

HILE he was the subject of the most intensive
manhunt since the wild days of the old west,
newspapers called killer William. Cook, 22,
“Mad Dog.” Later, after his capture in Lower
California, the newspaper writers mellowed and began
to call him “Badman Billy.” But the:romantic approach
just didn’t work for the 23-year-old ex-convict who had
killed six persons, including three children under 10-
years-old. Approaching the gas chamber in San Quentin,
“Mad Dog Billy’’, proved he was still a mad dog, snarled
at his guards, “I hate everybody.” No Western badman,
Billy had not given his victims a chance when he gunned
down the entire family of Illinois salesman Carl Mosser,
threw their bodies into an- abandoned mine-shaft in
Joplin, Missouri. Nor did he give his next victim, Robert
Dewey a chance. Billy shot Dewey in the back.

His murder technique was to hitch-hike a ride with
anyone who would stop, to take control of car and oc-
cupants—and eventually to kill the occupants.

After his capture, Cook’s fate awaited the tortuous
workings of the law for almost two years. He was orig-
inally tried for the kidnapping of the Mosser family, on
kidnap charges, and convicted to 300 years in the Fed-
eral Penitentiary at Alcatraz. Later, after he started
serving this sentence, murder charges were brought for
the death of Dewey. For this crime he later died.

His body was taken to Comanche, Oklahoma, on re-
quest of relatives, for burial. But soon the small town
was swarming with visitors from 39 states, drawn by
morbid curiosity and the romantic tales of the sobsisters.
Disgusted by the “Roman carnival” atmosphere, other
relatives put a stop to the proceedings, removed the

body to Missouri, and buried him secretly by night. e

24

some came from 2,000 miles away. Finally family members
stopped the display and the corpse was taken to a funeral
home near the ex-convict’s home town of Joplin, Missouri,
There he was buried in a secret night ceremony attended by
15 people. Even in death Billy Cook caused a commotion,

MAD DOG'S

LAST MILE

To the very end, Billy Cook’s career in crime
was sensational! He started to kill when he was
21, his end came in the gas chamber before he
hit 25. And even in death he made headlines,

this frozen-hearted boy who feared nobody. —

POLICE DETECTIVE MAGAZINE, October 197.

FE Se RE rer ali

i
¥

Barna A pie Na py

No longer the swaggering hoodlum who murdered six, Billy
Cook stands meekly chained (photo left) to a United States
Marshal as he awaits a boat to Akatraz Prison. He begon
serving a 300-yeor-sentence for slaying the Mosser family,
two adults and three children, before he stood trial for another
murder and drew a death sentence. Below, the ghastly scene
as searchers recovered bodies of the Mosser family from the
pit in which Cook had dumped them. He later told police “I
hate everybody.” Above, Cook's hand with prophetic tattoo.


OA merece nenne

a

76

CASE FILE

Some recent cases brought you by
TRUE Derecrive had not finally
been. disposed of when the issue
went to press. To keep our readers

informed, we will bring you in each

issue of TD a Case File report.

ANN IN THE CAMERA'S EYE

(September, 1952)

Because she was thirsty, Ann Mary
Finnegan walked to her death on
the afternoon of March 26th, 1952,
when. she accepted a man’s invita-
tion to have a beer with him, Her
battered, almost nude body was
found in Maryland’s Glen Burnie

' woods two weeks later. Her jaw had

been broken in two places and her

throat had been cut, Investigation |

gave police a lead on Lloyd Douglas
George, who had been inquiring as
to methods-of disposing of a dead
body. George and the woman who
posed as his wife, Della Blanche
Poulson, had disappeared ‘from
their rooming house the day after

the murder.. Their room showed.

evidences of human bloodstains on
the curtains and mattress, The
couple were located in Greenfield,
Ohio, and returned to Baltimore for
trial. On June 20th; 1952, Della
Poulson was found guilty of man-
slaughter in the death of Ann Mary
Finnegan and sentenced by Judge
E. Paul Mason to five years’ impris-
onment in the Maryland State Re-
formatory for Women. Immediate-
ly afterward, Lloyd George pleaded
guilty to being an accessory and was
sentenced to ree years in the
Maryland Penitentiary,

PICNIC FOR ‘FORTUNE
HUNTERS

(August, 1952)

Although during his trial in Los An-
geles, California, Albert J. Todd
steadfastly maintained that the wills
he filed on the estate of Charles
Babonet were genuine, neverthe-
less in the face of conclusive evi-
dence ably presented at the trial by
Deputy District Attorney Simon L.

ose, he was convicted on October
2nd. The trial lasted two weeks dur-
ing which time Todd fanatically dis-
puted positive testimony of hand-
writing experts that the wills were
forgeries. He was found guilty on
six counts as charged: two of forg-
ing a will, two of preparing false
evidence, two of filing a fraudulent
document. Los Aneeles Superior
Judge William B. Neeley sentenced
the former miner to a term of 1-to-
14 years in prison. Todd was the
second defendant to be held on
charges of forging a will to the es-
tate of wealthy recluse Charles Bab-
onet, who died on August 7th, 1950,
in his one-room house in Los An.
geles. Mrs. Pearl Tyson had plead-
ed guilty last April to a charge of
forgery and was given a 1-to-14 year
suspended sentence and placed. on
probation for five years,

ae

MARTI'S NIGHTMARE

(November, 1952)

Attractive, blonde-haired Marti Rob-
ertson, whose marijuana ‘smoking
activities extended even to giving
some to her two puppies and her
one-legged canary, was’ denied pro-
bation by Los Angeles Superior
Judge Thomas L. Ambrose after he
heard the report of the probation
officer. On October 21st, 1952, she
was sentenced to serve 90 days in
the county jail. ‘Previously, on Au-
gust 13th, her friend, James v.
Henesy, pleaded guilty to the charge

of possession of narcotics and was

sentenced to three months in the
county jail. His original probation
on the forgery charge mentioned in
the story was revoked and modified
to include three months in jail, con-
current with the new sentence. On
release he will be required to go
back to New York to live with his
family and make restitution of the
money still due.

THE CRAZED KIDNAPER
(May, 1952)

The trial of young Thomas G.
eames opened on October 28th,
1952, in Portland, Oregon. Reames,
who pleaded innocent by reason of
temporary insanity, was charged
with armed assault in connection
with using a shotgun to threaten

e Herron, one of several Persons
drawn into a shooting affray involv-
ing Reames and the Portland police
last year. The defense attorney ar-
gued that the defendant was in such
a state of mind following his di-
vorce that he became emotionally
upset and was temporarily insane at
the time of the assault, However,
the circuit court jury returned a
verdict of guilty and Thomas
Reames was placed on probation for
two years, after a one-year county
jail sentence had been suspended.
His estranged wife, Doretha, who
ad been seriously wounded in the
shooting episode, fortunately re-
covered from her injuries,

TERROR ON
U.S. HIGHWAY 66

(August, 1951)

From December 29th, 1950, to Jan.
uary ‘15th, 1951—from Texas to
Missouri— William E. Cook Jr., an
ex-convict, spread death and terror.
His first victims were Mr. and Mrs,
Carl Mosser of Atwood, IIl., and
their three small children, slain and
tossed into an abandoned mine
shaft near Joplin, Mo. The next
was Robert H. Dewey, a Seattle,
Wash., salesman. Three other men
were kidnaped, one a sheriff of
Blythe, Calif., but they escaped with
their lives. Captured on January
15th, Cook was sentenced by Judge
Stephen S. Chandler in Oklahoma
City to 60 years on each count for
the five Mosser deaths, the sentences
to run consecutively. He was sent
to Alcatraz. Later he was released
to California, to be tried for the
murder of Robert Dewey. On Octo-
ber 10th, 1952, Cook was sentenced
to die in California’s lethal gas
chamber at San Quentin prison.

THE CORPSE .
WITH THE WAXED FACE

(December, 1951)

It was just past midnight, the morn-

ing of June 26th, 1951, when-

wealthy widow Mrs. Betty Albritton
died on the porch of her home near
Fort Meade, Florida. Her friend, El-
wood North, a_ local undertaker,
was the only one present at the time,
Her will, which left everything to
North, and other unexplained inci-
dents directed suspicion toward the
undertaker, He was charged with

murder, tried, found guilty on Sep.’

tember 12th, 1951, but his attor-
neys filed an appeal. The appeal
was denied in the Florida State Su-
preme Court on October 21st, 1952,
In a 32-page majority opinion, Jus-
tice John R. Matthews wrote: “No
error has resulted in a miscarriage
of justice.” North. now faces death

|| in the electric chair,

“Look, put yourself in my place. You got a corpse in
the trunk. You want to ditch it. Would you travel thirty
miles per hour?"

/

§

Whi
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at the doc
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visitor eve:
He anno;
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of a lawye
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and at h
from the li;
Eagerly
the adoptio:
ing Carme:
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he kissed ¢
shall hear f
They did.
Three we
the Villars’
briefcase bu
documents.
what he had

“You, Car
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ceased Dona
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_"

‘| HATE
EVERYBODY'S
GUTS’

By A. R. LUMLE

Willie Cook sits in his cell in the
death house, awaiting the hour
when he will be taken to gas
chamber. To the end he protested
that he wanted to be a good boy,
but that nobody ever gave him the
breaks.

ON December 28, 1952, Willie
Cook, twenty-one, with a surly
sneer of hate on his twitching
face, walked into the gas chamber
at the St. Quentin prison in Cali-
fornia.

He said to the newspapermen:

“I hate your guts ... I hate
everybody’s guts.”

Twenty minutes later he was
dead.

Thus came to an end the short
life of our country’s most hideous
killer. The story of his murder of
Carl Mosser, an Illinois farmer, his
wife, and three young children,
has been run in every detective
magazine. The background of Will-
iam Cook was one all too familiar
in our social order. The last of
ten children, his mother died when
he was a baby, and his father
wouldn’t give him much attention.
He started early in crime and
spent most of his twenty-one years
in and out of reform schools.

But the end of the blood-stained
career of this homicidal youth
didn’t stop with his death in the
gas chamber. In Comanche, Okla-
homa (population less than 1500),
Glen. Boydstun, the local under-
taker, decided that in death Billie
Cook might do some good to
Comanche — and to himself,

The plan wasn’t very well for-
mulated in his mind when he got
permission from Cook's father to
claim the body in St, Quentin
prison. But the ambitious under-
aker started out in his hearse,
rove to California, claimed the
ody of the mad killer and
brought it back to Comanche.

le tate A ad

Carl Mosser and his family, the victims of insane fury of Cook, who
never gave a logical reason why he murdered them.

And then started one of the
most amazing — and disgusting —
exploitations of a human body in
modern times. Boydstun dressed the
lifeless Billie Cook in a pin-stripe
suit, a black necktie, and a shirt
that cost thirty dollars. Then Billie
Cook was placed on: display. This
body was something of a sensation
in Comanche, but the crowds that
flocked to the undertaking parlor
didn’t satisfy the undertaker.

So he decided a little publicity
might boost the number of sight-
seers. He announced blandly that
12,000 people had filed past the
bier the first two days, and busses
by the dozens were bringing child-
ren to the great sight. These
figures were angrily disputed not

fees Diss

only by citizens of Comanche, but
also by residents of other towns.

Yet the event hadn’t been a
complete failure. The most skep-
tical Comanche citizen had to admit
that the body had drawn a crowd
of at least 5,000 and there had
been many school children in the
crowd, brought along, as it was
explained, for the educational
experience,

Boydstun planned a funeral as
the great climax. He had loud-
speakers placed outside the funeral
home and the Reverend David
Soper of the Assembly of God
Church was asked to deliver the
funeral oration, the end of it re-
marking: “If we aren’t careful, we
will have a cannibalistic attitude in

America.”

The Reverend never had a
chance to deliver hig ringing

funeral sermon. Boydstun’s promise
that the casket would be open for
the multitude to see was never
carried out. Just as the publicity
stunt was about to reach its most
absurd height, the family of Billie
Cook, with the hearty approval of
Many citizens of Comanche,
stepped in, hired a lawyer to
bring legal action to stop the
Parade of morbid curiosity,

A suit was filed against
Boydstun, and the undertaker, who
suddenly realized that his stunt
wasn’t popular in his own town,
hastened to agree to do anything
the family wished. He was in-
structed to deliver the body to the
small town of Galena, Kansas. He
Placed three dozen celluloid roses
on Billy’s breast, put a plastie
boutonnier in the coat lapel. and
loaded the casket onto the hearse
and started for Galena, Kansas.

When he arrived there, Billy
Cook’s kin took charge of the
casket and in the darkness of the
night, they buried it in the rural
cemetery at Lone Elm, Kansas, The
only light they had was from
flash-lights, but no crowd was
there to see the final end of Bill
Cook.

Boydsten remarked ruefully: “It
was a good idea, but it backfired
on me,”

THE END

TIVE Summer /
i

Soon e rr eeeneernernmeemenee

7S 2

gh humidity,

temperature, -

ind uncomfor-

h “Jose” Ceja .

t-degree mur-
November, of

reat wave had .

weathér had
er resort city.
that hot June
/ the jury as a
was called to

alleo testified . :

investigation
:ers to Gregory
erified as the
Leons alive on
k the witness
uting attorney
e attitudes of
la. Leon early

| and cheerful,
.”’ the witness
e a couple of
e living room
n, was playing
ld me the dogs
1eighbors and
itting’ for the

eceive a tele-
a were still in

d. “It was just
and left.”

e call?” Asked
‘ney.

on,” the wit-

10 he was talk-

:osed an objec-
iming the wit-
ositively iden-
ne other end of
objection was

secution reph-

ioning:

to hear what
saying to who-
e?”

witness.

er to the caller

Jose, and ar-
me over to the
ater that same
nded.

f an acquaint-
Ceja, who also
e Leons. “Ceja
‘Jose’ by his

—-

‘ friends,” the witness added.

Detective Eloy Ysasi was then
called to the stand and sworn in.
Only two months earlier, Ysasi had

been honored as the “Phoenix Po- °

lice Officer of the Year” for his ex-
cellent investigative work on two

/ other unrelated murder cases. The

veteran officer, thoroughly’ versed
in the questioning of reluctant wit-
nesses, told the court of his interro-
gation of the suspect on July 11th.

_ With Ysasi testifying as a police ex-

pert, Ceja’s signed confession was
entered as evidence.
The jury heard closing argu-

‘ments on the case on November.19,

1974. and received: their instruc-
tions from presiding Superior.
Court Judge C. Kimball Rose.

The evidence of the confession,
plus. ballistics comparisons be-
tween the fatal bullets and test
slugs fired from the guns recovered
from the “burial spot” near Lake
Pleasant, was apparently strong
enough to thoroughly convince the
jurors. After deliberating for less
than an hour, they returned a ver-
dict of guilty”. _

On Thursday, December. 19,
1974, Judge C. Kimball Rose sen-
tenced 18-year-old Joseph Ceja to
die in the electric chair. “The de-
fendant committed these offenses
in an especially cruel and depraved
manner,”’ Judge Rose stated at the
sentencing hearing.

Ceja’s death sentence is based on
a new Arizona statue allowing capi-
tal punishment in certain crimes.
The. state law has yet to be re-
viewed by the U.S. Supreme Court,
and the verdict and sentence im-
posed on Joseph Ceja are currently
under appeal.

While awaiting the outcome of:

these appeals, Ceja is incarcerated
at the Arizona State Prison in Flor-
erice. Aaa : O
EDITOR’S NOTE: Gregory W.
Leaf and Mr. and Mrs. John Am-
herd are not the true names of the
persons in this story. Fictitious

’ names have beef used to prevent

needless embarrassment to those
innocently involved in the case.

SUSBSCRIBE
_ NOW! “
See ad page 65

CASE OF THE.
‘HARD LUCK’

: KILLER

‘A (continued from page 33) - Pe

through the head. Thelma, his wife},
had been shot once through the
chest. Ronald Dean, also bound and
gagged, had been shot four times —

three in the chest and once-in the .

head. The two smallest children —
Gary Carl and Pamela Sue — were
shot through the heart at close range.
It later came out that Cook shot the
latter two while they struggled in his

- arms,

The authorities claimed they could

“prove that Bill Cook had murdered

hine persons on the bloody trail that.
finally ended in Santa Rosalia,
Mexico. They said there were many
others, of whom the’ bodies have
never been recovered to this day.
Eventually, Cook was transferred

to Oklahoma City, where be stood |

trial in a federal court for the slaying
of the Mosser family, On. March 21,
after three. psychiatrists pronounced
him sane, a jury of five men and
seven women brought in a verdict of
guilty.’ Federal Judge Stephen S.
Chandler sentenced Cook to serve
five consecutive terms: of 60 years
each,- and suggested that he be
confined in Alcatraz.

Angered by the sentence handed
down by the judge, U. S. District
Attorney Robert Shelton asserted:
“If there was ever a death penalty
case in the history of the nation, this
is it.”
Shelton then called the Justice

Department in Washington, .and
“received permission to return Cook

to California to stand trial for the
slaying of Robert Dewey, the Seattle
salesman Cook had: murdered after
stopping him with the red light on the
deputy sheriff's car.

The second jury also found him
guilty, and this time Cook was
sentenced to death. He was executed
at San Quentin on December 12,
1952.

To the very last; Bill Cook
displayed no emotions, nor had he
anything to say in his defense. But,
then, what was there to say? oO

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Best True Fact Detective - March 1979 / 47


Forest Damron and James Burke
were taken hostage by Bill Cook and
lived a week of terror while he forced
them to accompany him through the
wild country of Baja California to
Rosalia, where he was finally
captured.

car,” snapped Cook.

He nudged the ‘nape of Burke’s
neck with the muzzle. Burke slowed,
wheeled his car around and drove
back to the stalled Buick.

“I’m Bill Cook,” the fugitive said in
a flat, impersonal voice. “Just do like
I say, and we'll get along all right.”

Burke and Damron got out at

Cook’s direction .and began to
unload the Buick and transfer tins of
food, blankets and guns — another
revolver and two rifles — to the back
seat of Burke’s car. Then they
removed the Washington license
plates on the Buick and handed them
over. They got back into the
Studebaker and waited for Cook to
give further orders.

“Drive back to Mexicali,” he said.

They drove northward, away from

San Felipe,
There was a long spell of utter

30 / Best True Fact Detective - March 1979

silence, then Cook spoke again: “You
guys know who I am?”

Damron and Burke nodded in the
affirmative.

“I suppose you heard about me on
the car radio. “Well, I’m on the run,
as you know. Nobody’s gonna catch

me, I'll tell you that much. I mean.

business. There’s been quite a lot of
people who didn’t take. me
serious...and they’re dead. You guys
behave yourselves, do like I say, and

we'll get along good. You keep your

hands on the steering wheel. And you
— keep yourhands in my sight all the
time. One arm here on the back of the
front seat, and the other hand up
against the front window. Don't

-make no quick moves and we'll make

it.”
A short pause, then he continued:
“Don’t make no quick moves. See

this gun? That Dewey guy, he started

to do something without saying
anything first. | shot him, once in the
head, Just one bullet, and he’s dead.
So don't move fast, or you'll join
him.” ’

These displays of anger were
accompanied by torrents of abuse,
backed with a sharp jab in the neck of
the offender wjth his gun. Burke
dialed the radio too fast, his driving
was bad, he talked too much, he
whistled too loudly, he was going too
slow, he wasn’t feeding the gas right
with the foot pedal.

Only 15 minutes after they had
been given these instructions and
warned, Damron dropped his arm to
reach into his pocket for his
cigarettes. The revolver clicked in his
ear. There was a short silence.

“Why ain’t you dead?” Cook asked
bitterly. “Your brains should be all
over that windshield. Now...don’t
move again. You shoulda been hit
then. Musta hit an empty chamber.
That was probably the one I gave
Dewey. Just don’t make a quick
move again. I shoot my people in the
head. It gets it over with quick.”

From Mexicali, Cook had Burke
drive west to Tijuana. When they
arrived there, Cook had them pick up
a road map. Studying it for a time,
Cook traced a finger down along
Mexican Highway Number I, south
along the Pacific Coast past
Ensenada and through the passes of

Sierra de San Pedro Martir and ©

Sierra San Miguel. His plan became
obvious...600 tortuous miles to the
south to Santa Rosalia, where he
would take a ferry across the Gulf of
California eastward to Guayamas
and the interior of Mexico.

The trio reached Ensenada by
nightfall and drove on to find a place
to camp — the first of seven long
nights of terror. Up a small road, off
the main highway, Cook had Burke
pull off to one side. After cooking
and eating supper, their captor
instructed them in the routine for
sleeping.

It was brief and to the point.

“Wrap up in those blankets. If you
wanna move, ask me.first. See this
gun? I’m cocking it now. It goes off
easy. And I sleep light. Very light.”

Cook was indeed a light sleeper,
constantly twitching and turning.
With the perpetual droop to the one

eye, they couldn’t tell whether it was _


tested Cook — and invariably he
responded, no matter how softly
Damron called.

“I can hear everything, Mr.
Damron,” Cook said, “so just don’t
try me.no more. I’m getting tired of
your games.”

There was very little sleep that
night, or any other night for a week.
It was torment, a nightmare, those
black hours between dusk and
daybreak, with a gun cocked and
ready to go off accidentally — or by
design. The two men realized by this
time that Cook was explosively
dangerous, and could be exceedingly
brutal.

Each day the roads became worse,
sometimes blocked by landslide
boulders, and always there were
rocks banging against the bottom of
the car. Any one of them might have
broken through the crankcase and
immobilized the Studebaker.

The noise of the rocks banging
against the bottom increased Cook’s
irritation and his temper became
progressively shorter. It was like
having a fuse lit, and not knowing
how long it was...how soon the flame
would hit the powder. There were
incessant foul-mouthed outbursts.

“Don’t try to jump me,” he yelled
at them. “Remember those two guys
I was telling you about in the Henry
J? They were scared when they
started, and everything they did was
fumbles. Fellas, let me tell ya — don’t
fumble!”

Several times they thought their
psychotic captor was about to kill
them, and go it alone. One time he
even forced them to walk up a small
ravine with a shovel. But he evidently
changed his mind. All their nerves

were wearing thin.

It was Friday evening when they
reached Santa Rosalia, where Cook
learned that the ferry to Guayamas,

95 miles across the Gulf, left every :

Tuesday. He told his two hostages
that they would hole up in the hills
until Tuesday, then they would sell
the car and he would take the ferry.
“You guys help me sell the car and,
just before I leave, I'll give you
enough to get back to the States.”
Damron spoke Spanish, and Cook
needed him to make any car sale.
Then Sunday evening, Cook
decided he wanted to go into town.
After cruising up and down a few
times, Cook told Burke to stop as

32 / Best True Fact Detective - March 1979

A a

they passed a cafe. “Let’s eat!”
While they were driving back and
forth, a car passed them with three
men in the front seat. The one in the
middle pointed at the Studebaker.
Cook never noticed, and the hostages
never called it to his attention,
Leading the way to a table at the
far end of the dingy cafe, Cook sat
down with his back to the entrance.

everybody!”

This was something he had never
done before on the trip. Cook ate
with his left hand, clutching the
revolver in his lap. Burke and
Damron could see directly into the
street. They watched a police car
stop, and three men get out and
approach the entrance. As they
entered, they had their guns drawn.
Damron and. Burke lowered their

As he was being locked up, Cook snarled viciously at his guards — “Lhate

A scene f:

heads an
steaming
It was
shot was
from bet
Krause
assistant
three me
A police
into it m
Burke
were thi
with Cox
cust
esta
rela. _
for discc
arrest of
money v
Mexical
El Cent
When
Morales
anybod:
Mean
con wh
with Cx
interest!
July, C
join hir
crime a:
man re
throw |
The |
Kansas
princip:
zinc in °
with

ie had never
ip. Cook ate
‘lutching the
Burke and
sctly into the
a police car
get out and
ce. As they
guns drawn.
owered their

irds — “I hate

heads and continued to eat the hot
steaming beams.

It was all over in seconds. Not a
shot was fired. Cook was grabbed
from behind. Tijuana Police Chief
Krause Morales and his two
assistants jammed revolvers into the
three men and ordered them outside.
A police van drew up and Cook got
into it meekly.

Burke and Damron protested, but
were thrust into the vehicle along
with Cook, to be released from police
‘custody when. their identities were
established ‘later in Tijuana. Their
relatives had offered rewards of $500
for discovery of the two men or the
arrest of Cook. They had posted the
money with the Mexican consulate in
Mexicali, just across the border from
El Centro..

When Cook was captured, he told
Morales: “I don’t remember killing
anybody.”

Meanwhile, back in Joplin, an ex-
con who had spent time in prison
with Cook told police officials an

interesting story. During the past:

July, Cook had insisted that the man
join him in launching a career of
crime across the Midwest. When the
man refused, Cook threatened to
throw him in a mine shaft.

The tri-state district of Missouri,
Kansas and Oklahoma was once the
principal source of lead and
zinc in the world. It is honeycombed
with mined-out tunnels and deep

A scene from the 1950s movie about Cook — “The Hitchhiker.”

shafts. Water has filled many of the
man-madeé caverns.

There is no way of calculating the
number of crimes hidden in the
numerous shafts, some of them
reaching into the bowels of the earth
for hundreds of feet. Over the years,
many bodies of murder victims have
been found in them as well as stolen
property, even including
automobiles.

In regard to one particular shaft in
Joplin, long boarded over, Cook told
the other man: “I’ve already thrown
one man in there. If you don’t go with
me, I’ll do the same for you.”

Feeling that Cook was deadly
serious, the man had stayed hidden
until Cook had left Joplin. After
talking to Chief of Detectives Carl
Nutt, the man led them to the
boarded-over shaft, about a mile
west of downtown Joplin, and 100
yards north of 4th Street.

Shortly after noon on Monday,
January 15, 1951, the day following
Cook’s arrest in Mexico, the five
bodies of the Mosser family were
found and recovered from the 100-
foot shaft where they had been
tossed. Had it not been for the ex-
convict’s story, it is doubtful that
their bodies would ever have been :
located.

Carl Mosser, his hands tied behind
him’and gagged, had been shot once

(continued on page 47)

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Best True Fact Detective - March 1979 / 33


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|
150 38 CALIFORNIA REPORTEL

stated that if the prosecuting attorney
should call such persons as witnesses the
judge would require him to furnish de-
fense counsel with copies of their state-
ments and would allow “ample time” for
defense counsel to study them in prepara-
tion for cross-examination. The position
of defense counsel, however, is that wheth-
er or not the prosecution called such per-
sons as witnesses defendant had the right
to examine their statements in advance of
trial so that he would have opportunity to
prepare his case. We have concluded that
defendant’s contentions cannot be sustain-
ed, that defendant was accorded a fair trial
on all issues, and that the order and judg-
ment from which this appeal is taken
should be affirmed.

Apart from defendant’s extrajudicial
statements there is evidence of the follow-
ing facts: At the times of the killings de-
fendant resided in a hotel at 293 T*ourth
Street in San Francisco. In 1958 Elvira
Hay (victim of the offense charged in
count 2) lived in another hotel nearby with
John (“Tennessee”) Fry. Witness John
Jones testified that shortly after 11 p. m.
on August 2, 1958, Elvira and Fry had an
argument on the street in the vicinity of the
mentioned hotels. Fry slapped Elvira,
knocked her down, grabbed her around her
neck, pulled her to her feet by the lapels
of her coat, and displayed a small paring
knife. When Fry produced the knife Jones
departed. |

At about 5 p. m. on August 3, 1958,
Mattie Williams, a tenant of the hotel at
293 Fourth Street, discovered Elvira’s nude
body in the tub of a common bathroom
across the hall from the room where de-
fendant lived. Elvira had died by strangu-
lation. The alcoholic content of her blood

1. As appears from extrajudicial statements
of defendant which were in evidence and
from defense counsel’s argument to the
jury, John Fry was convicted of man-
slaughter of Elvira and was serving a
sentence therefor in San Quentin State
Prison in June, 1959, when defendant
killed Karlean and confessed to the two
homicides.

was .24 per cent, which showed that she
was “very intoxicated” at the time of her
death. About her right knee were incisions
which had been made after her death. Her
pubic hair had been shaved off. The water
in the tub contained lye.?

On the evening of June 3, 1959, Earlean
Mosley (victim of the offense charged in
count 1) was in bed in her room at 293
Fourth Street. Her landlady and Mrs.
Adams, another tenant of the hotel, called
upon her. Earlean complained that she was
ill and that her legs ached. At about 9 p.m.
Mrs. Adams left Earlean’s room and re-
turned with soup for her. When Mrs,
Adams returned, defendant and another
man were also in the room. The landlady
and Mrs. Adams Ieft Earlean’s room at
about 9:20 p.m.

Shortly after midnight on June 4, 1959,
defendant entered the Southern Police
Station at 360 Fourth Street. Ile apparent-
ly had been drinking but “he wasn’t stag-
gering and his speech was clear and co-
herent.” Defendant gave police officers
his keys to the hotel and to his room at
293 Fourth Street. The police, pursuant to
statements of defendant, went to his room
and found the body of Earlean in defend-
ant’s bed. She was covered with a blanket
and.a pillow was over her face. She had
died as the result of strangulation with a
necktie which was knotted tightly around
her neck. She wore a nightgown and a
bathrobe. Her blood contained .28 per cent
alcohol; such a person would have been
“almost paralyzed, almost in a coma.”
Earlean’s radio was in defendant’s room
and the padlock and keys to her room were
on his dresser.

At 3:30 a. m. on June 4, 1959 (some four ~

hours after the killing of Earlean), a test

(Fry, who had been too drunk to re-
member the events of August 2 and 8,
1958, pleaded guilty to voluntary man-
slaughter of Elvira. After defendant eon-
fessed, Fry was pardoned on June 19,
1959.)

seamen cen

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of defend:
ed .10 pes
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jury. Bec
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kill, the su
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“approxim:
of her deat
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PEOPLE v. COOPER 149
Cite as 3 Cal, ptr. 148

women under separate counts and there was
sufficient evidence in each instance to sup-
port jury’s determinations that murder was
deliberate and premeditated, an instruction
as to murder in perpctration of or attempt
to perpetrate rape, warranted under the
evidence with respect to one of the victims
but not with respect to the other, did not
constitute error prejudicial to defendant
on any theory that it, in effect, informed
jury that there was sufficient: evidence of
rape to permit finding of first degree mur-
der in respect to either or both women,

7, Criminal Law €=627!/,

Court properly denied blanket request
of defendant that prosecution be required
to turn over to defense counsel all state-
ments which it had.

8. Criminal Law C=627!/

Although defendant does not have to
show, and indeed may be unable to show,
that evidence which he seeks to have pro-
duced for his inspection before trial would
he admissible at trial, to warrant produc-
tion he must show some better cause for
inspection than a mere desire for benefit
of all information which has been obtained
ty the People in their investigation of the
crime.

9. Criminal Law ©2627!

Record on appeal from conviction on
two counts for first degree murder failed
to reveal that trial court’s denial of de-
fendant’s request for production before
trial of statements, if any, of certain
named witnesses who had testified at a
preliminary hearing with respect to another
defendant was erroneous or prejudicial as
it did not appear that any further investiga-
tion of such matters could have aided de-
fendant in preparation of his case.

10. Criminal Law ©6271!

Trial judge, in passing on defendant’s
request that People be required to produce
certain statements which they had taken
and which defendant assertedly needed to
prepare for trial could properly consider
that defendant was indicted on June 11 and
that, on July 29, trial was set for August

10, but that not until July 31 did defend-
ant present motion that prosecution be re-
quired to furnish such statements.

———

Edward T. Mancuso, Public Defender,
and Claude D. Perasso, Deputy Public De-
fender, San Francisco, for appellant.

Stanley Mosk, Atty. Gen., and Peter ae
Kennedy, Deputy Atty. Gen., for respond-
ent

SCHAUER, Justice.

Defendant was charged with (count 1)
murder of Earlean Mosley committed on or
about June 4, 1959, and (count 2) murder of
Elvira Hay committed on or about August
3, 1958. As to each count he pleaded not
guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity,
and a jury found him guilty of murder of
the first degree, fixed the penalty at death,
and found that defendant was sane at the
time the offense was committed. Defend-
ant’s motion for new trial was denied.
This appeal (pursuant to Pen.Code, § ioc,
subd. (b)) is from the order denying a
new trial and the ensuing judgment which
imposes two sentences of death.

Defendant urges that as a matter of law
the murders were of the second degree
only, and that the giving of instructions as
to murder in the perpetration of or attempt
to perpetrate rape was prejudicial error
because there was insufficient evidence to
justify instructions on that subject. Both
these contentions rest upon defendant’s
view that the “corpus delicti” of first de-
gree murder (on the facts here, either a
wilful, deliberate, and premeditated intent to
kill, or the elements of rape or attempted
rape), and not merely the death of the vic-
tims by criminal agency, must be proved by
evidence other than extrajudicial state-
ments of the defendant. Defendant further
contends that the trial judge erred to his
prejudice by refusing to order the People
to furnish defense counsel, prior to trial,
with copies of statements of seven persons
assertedly obtained by the People in their
investigation of the killing of Elvira Hay.
The judge in connection with such ruling


a. COOPER, Richard Thomas, black, asphyxiated San Quentin (Se~ "rancisco) on 7-8-1960.
|

148

|

cient charge to support extradition, that
procedure can nevertheless be effected if
someone in the demanding state goes before
a magistrate and makes supplementary
“affidavits to support extradition.” I can-
not agree with any suggestion that purely
evidentiary affidavits not charging a crime
would be sufficient to supplement a charge
which is defective on its face (cf. In re
Davis (1945), 68 Cal.App.2d 798, 809

[3], 158 P.2d 36).

For the reasons above stated, it is my
opinion that the petitions should be granted
and the petitioners should be discharged
from custody.

McCOMB and PETERS, JJ., concur.

Rehearing denied; SCHAUER, Mce-
COMB and PETERS, JJ., dissenting.

fe) KEY NUMBER SYSTEM

anms

PEOPLE of the State of California,
Plaintiff and Respondent,

Vv.

Richard Thomas COOPER, Defendant and
Appellant.
Cr. 6545.

Supreme Court of California,
In Bank.
March 4, 1960.

"Defendant was convicted on two
counts of murder in the first degree and
was sentenced to death on each count. The
Superior Court, City and County of San
Francisco, Gerald S. Levin, J., rendered
judgment and there was an automatic ap-
peal. The Supreme Court, Schauer, J.,
held, inter alia, that defendant’s extra-
judicial admissions were sufficient evidence
to support jury determination that murders
were deliberate and premeditated and that
record revealed no error or prejudice re-
sulting from trial court's denial of defend-
ant’s request for production of certain

statements.
Affirmed.

3 CALIFORNIA REPORTER

{. Criminal Law €=517(4)
Homicide C=228(1)

The corpus delicti in case involving
first degree murder consists of two ele-
ments, the death of victim and existence
of some criminal agency; once prima facie
proof of corpus delicti is made, extrajudi-
cial statements, admissions, and confessions
of defendant may be considered in deter-
mining whether all elements of crime have
been established. West’s Ann.Pen.Code,

§ 189.

2. Criminal Law €=412(1)

Where corpus delicti of crime of mur-
der was established by independent evi-
dence, defendant’s extrajudicial statements
could properly be used to establish that
murders were of first degree. West’s Ann.
Pen.Code, § 189.

3. Homicide €=253(3)

Defendant’s extrajudicial statements
containing introspective description of his
mental and emotional processes were suf_h-
cient evidence to support jury’s determina-
tions that murders, the commission of which
was established by independent evidence,
were deliberate and premeditated so as. to
constitute crimes of murder in first degree.
West’s Ann.Pen.Code, § 189.

4. Homicide ©253(3), 282
Evidence of defendant’s intoxication
was substantial evidence of. his lack of

premeditation and deliberation, but weight |

to be accorded such evidence was for trier
of fact. West’s Ann.Pen.Code, § 189.

5. Homicide ©=332(2)

Where there was evidence: from which
jury could conclude that homicides were fe-
sult of deliberation and premeditation so as
to constitute murder in first degree, review-
ing court could not reduce degree of mur-
ders merely because there was evidence
of intoxication which could constitute sub-
stantial evidence of lack of premeditation
and deliberation. West’s Ann.Pen.Code,

§ 189.

6. Criminal Law C>1172(1)
In prosecution wherein defendant was
convicted of first degree murder of two

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ll any-
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ad no

ith ex-
ack the
ements
illy,. he
irl six-
tending
an, the

‘measurements } when

_she was an: expectant mother, ‘and the two.
_ Sets. of measurements ‘together with the
* general descriptions of both girls showed
_..a-striking resemblance between them.
++ Smith said thaf’Dr. McMahon ‘had ex-

pressed amazement after: he had com-
pared the physical characteristics of the
victim and Sally Ellis. He thought he might
be able to identify the victim if she ac-
tually was the missing girl.

Knoll was. impressed by what Smith

told. him, but. he explained that the au-
topsy report, which had already ruled out
his abortion-mill theory, made it appear
unlikely. that the murdered girl was Sally
Ellis. The report stated that. the victim
had evidently never been a mother.

However, Knoll agreed with Smith that
this otherwise promising lead should be
thoroughly investigated, and he promised
to take the matter up with the autopsy
surgeon.

When Dr. Wallace learned that the miss-
ing Albany girl had a hammer. thumb. on
her left hand, a» vaccination mark on her
right arm, and was of approximately the
same age, size and complexion as the vic-
tim, he remarked ‘that he was reasonably
sure the-latter had never. borne: a child
but that it was possible he was wrong. »

“Even in.the case of identical twins,” he
said, ‘it would be astonishing to find that

Ironically, the act
that led to his ar-
rest had no con-
nection , whatever
with the, murders

the ‘similarity. between them included
hammer thumbs.on the same hand.”
After further communication’ between

the Albany police. and the Sacramento .

officers, arrangements were made for In-

spector Smith to:bring Dr.-McMahon and’

the thirty-six-year-old car Painter, Bren-
nan,. to. Sacramento to view the remains
of the murder -victim.

A court order -was obtained, and the -
. headless, legless body was exhumed a few as

hours before the: party arrived, on Janu-

ary 8th.

The result was inconclusive, Dr. Mc-
Mahon studied the_ torso carefully and

‘then said he could not make a positive
identification without seeing the head. .
' . Brennan, who told reporters he knew

he would be a logical suspect if the corpse

- was found to be-that of the girl he had

dated, gazed’ at the body with seeming

. €arnestness before shaking his head in the
negative.

“It-may be Sally,” he said. “I just can’t
say whether it is or not.” Y

| foe returning to Albany, Dr. Mc-
Mahon conferred with Dr. Wallace, who
then expressed his doubt that the body
was that of Sally Ellis whose measure-
ments showed that she was somewhat
larger than the victim, and the autopsy

surgeon was still firm in his conviction that
the murdered girl had never borne a child.

Nevertheless, the hammer thumb, vac-

cination mark and other similarities led
the Albany police to continue the investi-
gation. They spent several days trying to
locate a set of Sally Ellis’ fingerprints,
only to find that she had not been finger-
printed in any of the places where she had
been employed. Neither had she obtained
€ driver’s license, which would have placed
2 her right thumbprint on record among

1

: AS

objects she. v

-home for latentprints ‘on’

her. foster-parents F
touched since she last handled them.

Unfortunately, these latent prints were
so old that they were difficult: to classify.
The: objects. on which they were found
were therefore | brought .to Sacramento,’
where it was finally concluded, after
comparing the prints of -both girls, that

the victim was not Sally Ellis,

In the meantime, the New York jewelry
firm had replied to McVeigh’s inquiry, and

another lead. ended’ in disappointment:

The bracelet was not one of those handled

by this company, and ‘there appeared to

‘be little likelihood that it had been manu-

factured ‘in the East.

-Although the Sally Ellis lead had. been

proved. false, it served a good. purpose.
While it was believed that the torso was

at:the point of being positively identified, |
a great deal of exciting newspaper pub-.

||SWAP_ NECKTIES!

licity was given the case...

\The result was that many. persons- who.
seldom: read the | newspapers \and « knew) |
little or nothing about either of the torso
slayings: became aware of the efforts. be-'

ing made to solve the latest mystery, and

during the height of. the speculation con-

cerning the victim’s identity; ‘two more

‘leads. developed. :° ea Sas

The first. was a report from. a Stockton.
man that the bracelet-found on the torso | .
was exactly like one owned by. his missing, |.
eighteen-year-old daughter. He ‘said «shes|)
had! vanished whilé on ‘parole. from: the: |:
Sonoma: State Hospital, where her finger- |-

prints were on record, Sy ME :

On the same day, January. 14th, a Sacra-
mento man reported ‘that on the morning ‘||. ’
of December 18th’ he. had: seen a green
sedan speeding toward Sacramento. from”
a point near the American’ River. The lid»
of the trunk compartment was raised, he |

said.

Both of these leads quickly petered out,
The Stockton girl’s, fingerprints: were. ob=.
. tained, and they proved that she was not

the murder victim. | -

}#

WHEN ‘questioned, the man who had seen |,

the ‘speeding car admitted that he was
not sure of -the date, which might have

-been after the torso was discovered. Fur-

thermore, the car -had not~been coming
from the river, and the driver had. driven
away with the trunk compartment open
after stopping to change a tire. > _

Other. tips were received and run. down.
A party of. hunters . reported seeing. a
human head in a .slough-off the Sacra-
mento River, but an investigation proved
them to be mistaken. é '

At the same time, an attractive young
Sacramento waitress was reported missing.
She was a brunette whose description ap-
proximated: that of the victim. But she
turned up a few hours later, upon learn-
ing that she was being’ sought. i

Knoll and. McVeigh now found them-
selves‘ facing a blank wall. Several times
they had felt sure they. were about to
establish the victim’s identity, and it was
bitter to realize that the prospects of their
solving the case were beginning to look
no better than in the first torso murder, -
which had seemed almost hopeless from
the start.

Not only was the murdered girl’s identity
still shrouded in mystery, but the slayer’s
motive was equally obscure. Even ‘the
approximate date of the murder could
only be guessed at. 2

Sheriff Cox made one more appeal to the
public for information, and this was pub-

lished in the newspapers on January 16th. |

ete Drea

‘known to have handled, ‘They finally found
 her-prints on a bottle, three dinner plates |

and. two phonograph records, all of -which | +)”
. Said had not. been

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New York, ‘N.’Y, MGI .

.

Macfadden demas 205 E., 42nd ‘Street

Neither he: ‘nor thie ‘deputies an ied this
' effort as anything ” more than a forlorn
‘hope, but ‘it resulted’ in an anonymous

tip that was received the following day.

A woman who refused to give her name
telephoned to report. that a -friend of hers
had information about a neighbor: whose
actions were cause for suspicion.

“Around the middle of last month,” she
said hurriedly, “this man, who lives in
Brighton, about a mile from the Ameri-
can River, brought a young woman to his
cabin. Nobody. saw the girl leave there,
but a couple of days later my friend saw
him burn'a mattress in his back yard.”

Her friend’s name was Mrs. Ira T.
Anderson, she said, and furnished her ad-
dress. Still refusing to reveal her own
identity, she hung up .while the deputy
who received the call was trying to ques-
tion her,

Knoll and. McVeigh immediately drove
to Brighton, a suburban’ community near
the eastern outskirts of Sacramento, where
they readily located Mrs, Anderson’s home.
She was a pleasant-faced, motherly type
of woman, who operated a foster home for
children while caring for her invalid hus-
band, who was confined to bed.

A little ppset to find herself involved
in a murder investigation, she admitted
that she had told several of her friends
about her neighbor, Vic Corrales, and the
mattress he had burned,

“But I.don’t really suspect him of those
terrible murders,” she said, “and I wish I
knew which one of my friends telephoned
you. ”

It developed, however, that her sus-
picions: of her neighbor were somewhat
stronger than she cared to admit. But she
feared possible reprisals) Should he be
tried but not convicted, then not only her
own safety but that of her husband and
the children might be endangered.

Knoll quickly reassured her on this
score, promising that ‘her. identity would
be protected as long as there was any risk
involved. She felt better then, and talked
freely.

HE man’s name was Victoriano Corrales.

He lived in a shack near by, having
previously occupied a similar cabin near
a “vegetable. garden,’ where he was then
employed: He now worked as a laborer

| for a pipe company.’He was a quiet, mild-

mannered little. man who spoke with a
foreign accent and said he was born in
Mexico.. He had lived in’ Brighton a year
or more, off and on, sometimes staying in
Sacramento, People said he “was steady,
hard-working and always paid his debts.

“TJ don’t know him’ very’. well,” Mrs.
Anderson explained, “but he always im-
pressed,;me as a nice man.” -

Then she went on to tell why he might
not be what he appeared to be. A month
earlier he had brought.a girl to his cabin
in a taxicab, early inthe evening. The
children heard them arguing and saw him
push cher inside. They all were’ afraid to
go near. the shack except eleven-year- old
Harold McQuillan, .who tiptoed over and
listened to a violent argument. in Spanish,

Rejoining his playmates, he’‘excitedly
told them what he had heard. Then he
went. back and listened again. To his sur-
prise, there was not a sound to be heard.

-|,He finally left, wondering at the abrupt

cessation ‘of the heated quarrel.:

~ Thé children told Mrs, Anderson about
the quarrel, and the ‘next. day they com- -.

mented on the fact that. Corrales had
gone to work alone and the: girl had not

set foot. outside the cabin. But Mrs. An- ~

‘derson concluded that: she had left saute
~ Two days. later, ighe. sal '

Corrales: buming what; appeared io
attress -in his

‘back home with a-cheap cotton mattress. |

‘When the newspapers began to carry
headlines about the second torso murder,
Mrs. Anderson was too busy to pay much
attention to the story. She simply never
thought of Corrales in that connection, al-

though: she still wondered sometimes why ©

he had burned that mattress.

One day, however, a group of her
friends gave her a detailed, spine-chilling
account of both murders. They said the
sheriff was asking the public to report
any circumstances that might furnish a
lead, and they pointed out that the slayer
might be the last person anyone would
suspect.

That started a train of thought going in

her mind, and she began to wonder about
Corrales’ wife, whom she had seen only
a few times. She had been a nice-looking

“Mexican girl, evidently in her twenties,

though Corrales was around fifty. They
had moved into the cabin after having
lived for a time in a shack down by the
river. A few days later they had both
disappeared.

When Corrales returned, a couple of
weeks later, Mrs. Anderson asked him
what had become of his wife. He said they
had gone to Arizona together and that
she had left him there. He wasn’t much of
a talker, so Mrs. Anderson told him she
was sorry to hear it, and that was all that
was ever said about the matter.

But with her suspicions aroused, Mrs.
Anderson asked her friends for more in-
formation about the first torso murder.
They said the body had been discovered in
Steamboat Slough on June 21st. Mrs. An-
derson couldn’t remember exactly when
Corrales and his wife had disappeared, but
she thought it was around the first of
June. At any rate, she was sure it was
some time before the torso was found. _.

She still assumed that the couple ac-
tually had gone somewhere together, but
she -wondered whether it was to Arizona
and whether the girl had really left him or
been slain.

The more she thought about these things,
the more her suspicions increased, and she

' began to tell her friends about them. The

other women urged her to go to the
sheriff’s office and tell her story, but she
couldn’t bring herself to do that. She
wanted more proof before she accused a
harmless-appearing little man who might
be wholly innocent.

“But one of my friends must have de-
cided it was her duty to report what she
had heard from me,” Mrs. Anderson con-
cluded.

“It’s a good thing she did,” “MevVeigh

- replied. ‘“‘No harm is going to come to this, :
man unless he’s guilty. But if he murdered.

both of those women, then the lives of

other. women are in danger while he’s at

large.”

“That's right,”. Knoll . said,
needn’t feel nervous about this, because
we'll protect you.”

They thanked her for her cooperation, ;
and then left to find Corrales.

N. HOUR later, at the plant where choke 2

4 worked, they took him into custody.. ~

Questioned by Sheriff Cox and Chief...
Deputy District Attorney Alfred H. Mundt,. §°
Corrales calmly denied that he had ever. -
‘had a woman living with him or that he, ~
had brought a girl to his cabin. He readi- —
ly admitted having burned the mattress, |
but said it had been soiled by the chil-. ~.
‘-dren of some friends who had occupied the
cabin while he was’ away. He had decided :
to get rid of it and buy a new one, he

asserted.

“and you’

; Knowing that the suspect: was ‘ying a,
when “he “denied any connection « “with
either of the women Mrs. the eral

baa

tody at last. They
questions,
Speaking in clear t
he steadfastly ma
of innocence,
Knoll and Me\
gone to his cabin
They found a lar;
knife on the tabl
leaning against tl
but there’ was n
blood on either,
After failing to
clothing or other
side and found the
tress Corrales hac
But that was
taking the ax and
By a late’ hour 1
contradicted himse
betraying his inne
mitted that he he
with him, but sai
a.trip on June Ist
out on him in Ari
was Alberta Gon
about twenty-eigh
But he continue
brought another y:
on December 12th
They were mista)
sisted.
They finally let
For Knoll and
sleep that night,
ing was resumed
were primed and
terviewed Corrale:
workmen, and hac
in Sacramento wh«
with a young wor
a taxicab driver vy
the girl to his cab
other cab driver
suspect at’ a beer
the next evening ar

ithe legs of his tro.

dried mud up to tl
questioned Mrs, Ar
with little Harol
playmates.

ane began th
ing the suspect
night.
“Oh, so-so,” he
“Are you ready
with that girl you

but w


“tody. at-la er: ;
. questions, but without}/much © success.

5 aia Ral

st. The

ice

y
Speaking in clear but abbreviated English,

‘he steadfastly maintained his assertions

of ‘innocence. eg ress

Knoll ‘and McVeigh, meanwhile, had
gone to his cabin and were searching it.
They found a large, keen-edged butcher

knife'on the table and a double-bit ax

leaning against the electric refrigerator,
but there' was no discernible trace of
blood on either.

After failing to discover any women’s
clothing or other clues, they went out-
side and found the springs from the mat-
tress Corrales had burned.

But that was all. They finally lett,

taking the ax and knife with them. -
- By a late hour that night, Corrales had
contradicted himself many times and was
betraying his inner agitation. He now ad-
mitted that he had had a woman living
with him, but said he had taken her on
a.trip on June Ist and that. she had walked
out on him in Arizona. He said her’ name
was Alberta Gomez and that she was
about twenty-eight.

But he continued to deny that he had
brought another younger girl to his shack
on December 12th, or at any other time.
They were mistaken about that, he: in-
sisted.

They finally let him get some sleep.

For Knoll and McVeigh, there was little
sleep that night, but when the question-
ing was resumed the next morning they
were primed and ready. They had in-

‘terviewed Corrales’ employer and fellow

workmen, and-had traced him to a hotel
in Sacramento where he had spent a week
with a young woman. They had located
a taxicab driver who had taken him and
the girl to his cabin in Brighton, and an-

other cab driver who had picked up the ~

suspect at°’a beer parlor’ in Sacramento
the next evening and who remembered that

the legs of his trousers were covered with

dried mud up to the knees. They had also

. questioned Mrs. Anderson again and talked

with little Harold. McQuillan and ~his
playmates.

: | (tine began the interrogation by dsk-

ing the suspect how he had spent the
night. ;

“Oh, so-so,” he replied, with a shrug.

“Are you ready to tell us what you did
with that girl you took to your cabin, on

him. with |

‘in November.

“We know the dat
the taxicab company ha:

trip. ee ae ae Mey ee Sah
“TT have'no girl,” Corrales answered. |
. “Now, look .here,: Corrales,” ‘Knoll’ sai

sharply. “I am going to’ bring that cab'|
driver in here, and he will tell*you to your | -
face that he took you and a girl to your |.

shack on that night.” *
Corrales’

a moment, then spoke. “I kill her,” he
said, wre

With the aid of an interpreter sent by.

the local Mexican consul, a statement was
obtained from the slayer. Sie uae beta ay

The girl’s name was. Maria Pulido, he
revealed, and she was -about twenty. He
had met her in Mexico, whereshe had gone
She was very pretty, and
he begged her to accompany him back
to the United States. He knew. she was

‘poor and friendléss, and he painted a
glowing picture of the life of luxury ‘that -

would be hers in the country north of the
border. ‘ ean :

She agreed to go with him, and he smug-
gled her into California at night.

section of the border. _He brought her to

Sacramento, and for a few days they lived.

together in a hotel room. Then he took
her in the taxicab to his cabin. 4
When the girl saw the wretched shack
he called his home, she was furious.' j
“You lied to me!” she cried. “I will not
live here. .Why this hovel is worse than
anything I ever livéd in in Mexico. It is
as old and ugly.as youarel” .
Angered .by the taint, he dragged her
inside and prevented her from ‘leaving.
Their bitter quarrel reached a climax when
she asserted. that she was through with
him and was going to a younger man. .
Corrales said he grabbed up.a hammer

_and struck her twice on the head.

A short .time later, without trying to
determine whether or not she was_ dead,

he began cutting up the. body, ‘using the’
knife and the ax Knoll and McVeigh had.

found. . He did it, he said, to make it easier

for him to, transport ‘the remains, which,

he carried to the river in a burlap sack..He

made two trips, disposing of the torso first:

and then the head and legs. ‘ ath
Having made this confession, Corrales
remained cooperative. He led the officers

er)

“We don’t pay no salaries but when you find a pearl, it’s yours.” 5

glance fell -beneath ‘Knoll’s.
penetrating gaze. He studied his’hands for °

| underthe eyes, headaches and dizziness. Frequent or

They |
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THE STRANGLING
at HONEYMOON HOUSE

When the body of the love-
ly daughter of an Atlanta
socialite was discovered—
strangled, ravished and
submerged in the waters

of Peachtree Creek—po-.

lice uncovered some really
bizarre clues. A beautiful
artist’s model gave some
startling information. The
case threatened to develo
into a sensational scand
You won’t want to miss
this absorbing true ac-
count of one of the South’s
most discussed recent
criminal cases

WOMAN CRAZY.

A dangerous killer had a

weakness for women—

but he tried his wiles on
the wrong girl

Here is. a fast-moving
story of terrér aboard a
crack streamliner, with
the lives of 150 passen-
gers endangered by two
armed hold-up men

MANY OTHER FEATURES

The Death Lure . . . Voice

of Treason ... and others

(Above schedule
subject to change)

jortin

TERROR ON TRAIN No. 19

water, al they. immediately b
gging” ver-in.that area. —

murdered girl was recovered, not far from

*where*he said he had ‘thrown it into the

stream. : ;

“Seeking additional evidence in support
of the slayer’s confession, Knoll had the ax
and knife examined, but. tests revealed
mo trace of blood on either. Then part
of the cabin floor was taken up, and traces

‘of human blood were found between the

cracks, — , ‘i
EANWHILE, persia ‘continued to
‘deny any knowledge of the previous

torso murder, and the officers began to-

wonder whether it actually was a separate
case,

Then Knoll and Deputy Munizich made
another search of the cabin, and the latter
discovered two short pieces of electric cord

attached to a light socket. The same type -

of wire had been used to truss up the
blanket-wrapped torso discovered in
Steamboat Slough, and a comparison soon
proved that it had been cut from the length
of wire found in the cabin.

When Deputy District Attorney Mundt
showed the suspect the wire and pointed
out that the ends of both pieces matched,
he scratched his head and smiled ruefully,

“I kill Alberta, too,” he admitted.

Alberta Gomez had been twenty-eight
and a native of Irapuato, Mexico, where
Corrales was born. He met her there dur-
ing a trip in search of an attractive mate.
She could not resist the lure of the kind of
life he said awaited her in the fabulous
United States, and he smuggled her across
the border and brought her to his first
shack in Brighton.

‘Bitterly disillusioned, she threatened to

leave him, but she had no money and he
persuaded her to remain. They moved into
the cabin near Mrs. Anderson’s home, and
there she began going out and making
friends, and he suspected that she was
looking for a’ younger man who would
rescue her from her plight, as she had
hinted she would ‘do.
’ A few days later, around June 12th, he
came home and found that she had not
prepared his supper. He demanded an ex-
planation, and she replied that she had
spent the day in town and just got back.
During the argument that followed, she
declared that she was under no obligation
to have his meals ready- for him, and she
began getting her things together, pre-
pared to walk out on him.

“T hit her with the hammer and break
the handle,” he said, “Then I cut her up
and carry the pieces to the river.”

Five months later, he returned to Ira-
puato and induced Maria Pulido to live
with him, as he had previously related. He
used the same hammer to murder her, and
it’ was: because the handle was cracked
from bludgeoning his first victim that he
wasn’t sure the two blows killed her.

An examination of Miss Pulido’s head

vhad already led the autopsy surgeon to

express the opinion that she had not died
from the hammer blows but from the de-
capitation.

HE Mexican autHorities' were contacted,
and they found witnesses who had seen
*both of the victims with the killer at the
times he had mentioned. They forwarded
a snapshot: of Miss Pulido, which showed
her walking along the street with an un-

th identified girl, pica

~\During; the questioning, Corrales‘: re-
vealed that he had a wife and six children,
Ww Ose yhereabouts he didn’t know. » He
aim -suddenly, s

_ few hours later, the head of the

this woman, too; put cuneral days later the Be
_ search for her turned up his eldest daugh-

ter at Woodland, north of Sacramento,
where the fourteen-year-old child was

“working to help her mother support her

family.

The mother and her other five children
were then located 100 miles south of there,
near Fresno.

She told authorities she was not sur-

prised to: learn that her husband had mur- -

dered two women, and revealed that she
had ‘fled from him in fear for her life.

At first they had been happy together,
she said, but he began to change after
their first child was born. He became more
and more brutal, beating her and mistreat-
ing the children. He often threatened to
kill her, and once chased her with a knife.
That time, she declared, only luck and
the intervention of the children saved her;
he tripped and fell down, and the children
held him while she got away.

Corrales’ aged mother and the other

members of his family were also located,
near Benicia. They were stunned by the
revelations concerning him, except _ his
mother, who was almost 100 years old and
too frail to be told the truth.
. The authorities traced Corrales’ back-
ground and concluded that he had not
murdered anyone else. He was meanwhile
charged with the murders of Alberta Go-
mez and Maria Pulido, and entered pleas
of not guilty and not guilty by reason of
insanity to both counts.

An examination by three eminent psy-
chiatrists showed the slayer to be sane,
and his insanity plea was then withdrawn.

While the trial was pending, Sally Ellis
returned to her home in Albany. Sur-
prised to learn of the search that had been
made for her, she said she had traveled
through several states, working in night-
clubs,

Corrales was brought to trial in March.
The defense offered no evidence, but main-
tained that the defendant had killed in the
heat of passion, without premeditation, and
was therefore not guilty of first- degree
murder.

But Deputy District Attorney John
Quincy Brown demanded the death pen-
alty, asserting that Corrales was “another
Bluebeard,” whose moral concepts were
those of.a Stone Age savage.

“He murdered those girls and then cut
up’ their bodies,” Brown said, “with as
little concern as you or I would have in
cutting off the head of a chicken.”

The jury agreed with the prosecutor, for
on March 16th it found the defendant
guilty of murder in the first degree, with-
out recommendation, on each of the counts,

OUR days later, Superior Judge Raymond .

T. Coughlin sentenced the torso mur-
derer to die in the gas chamber at San

Quentin Prison, where he was taken to.

await the outcome of his automatic appeal
to the State Supreme Court.

Ironically, although Mrs. Anderson. says
she never would have suspected her neigh-
bor if she hadn’t seen him burning a
mattress, Corrales still insists that there
were no bloodstains on it; and if he is
telling the truth, then the act that led to

his capture’ had no connection with either ‘

of the murders.

Epiror’s Norte:
' The names Sally Ellis and Rex Bren-_
nan, as used in the foregoing story, are

cerned, These persons have been given
fictitious names in: order to protect their’

not the real names of the persons con-~ ty

‘identities. The slayer,. Victoriano Cor-
aaa A, “shown iat Jef
Distri

MAmstostatw

aw:

oe

ee ene

sate enancuerc aan

“Pm going to live by the gun, and roam,” was ruthless
credo of Cook (I.),captured by Police Chief Morales (r.)

Characteristic tattoo which desperado bears on his
| HARD LUCK

left hand is- self-pitying legend:

streets. Teen-agers Ruben Copeland, Olden Roberts, Ray-
mond Smith and Jackie Sampson were on Lafayette Street
when a car stopped beside them, and the hatless, bushy-
haired passenger in the front seat asked, “How can we get |
to Wichita Falls without going on the main highway?”

“There is no other way,” the youths told him.

“There is—I know there is.” - ;

As he spoke, the youngsters noticed that.a woman was
seated on.the floor in the rear. “She kept pointing with her
fingers,” the boys recalled, “first to us, then to the man in
front. She was moving her lips and shaking her head like
she was saying ‘no’ but she didn’t say anything out lou i.

It was a silent plea for aid—but its meaning was lost on
the otherwise well-intentioned lads. Before they could ‘de-
cide what to do about it the man beside the driver said,
“Okay—let’s go,” and ‘the car moved off. - *

Not until two days later—Monday, January ist, was the
Chevvie and its occupants seen again. Dennis Carver, pro-
prietor of a filling station and store near Foreman, Arkan-
sas, in the southwest corner of the state, recalls: “The
woman looked as though she had been crying. The children
were begging for water, but the man beside ‘the driver
pushed me away and wouldn’t let me give them any. I
could hear the kids crying as the car drove away.”

Joplin, Missouri, the city built upon lead and zinc mines,
is over 300 miles north of the Foreman area. In the early
morning hours of Tuesday, January 2nd, there came another
chance of rescue. A prowl car on a routine patrol of the
southern fringe of the city, a region marked by scraggly
fields, abandoned mine workings, refuse heaps and tar-
paper shacks, spotted the blue Chevrolet parked near an
open field. “We looked it over,” said one of the officers,
“and saw that it had Illinois plates. We threw out a spot-.
light on it. When we saw the children, we didn’t suspect
that anything could be wrong, They did not appear to be
in any trouble and so we drove on.” . :

It is 139 miles from Joplin to Tulsa, Oklahoma, on
Route 66, ; .

Shortly after 8:30 a.m. that same day, the blue car was»

seen on a side road north of the Osage Hills Shopping Cen-
ter. It was at an angle with the road, its rear end in a
mud-spattered ditch. Pete Essley, driving’ by in a pickup
truck, remembers the incident well. “As I came.near, a
man got out of the car, and stepped into the road with his
right hand in his pocket in an unnatural position. He
looked rough and unshaven. I locked my doors, and took
a rifle from under the seat. Then I stopped. He asked me
to. pull him out of the ditch—I told him to phone for a
wrecker.” ,
And so. the blue car remained slanted in the ditch for.
another hour, until Lloyd A. Edwards, a telephone com-
pany employee, stopped, and offered to call a wrecker. ~

“The man opened the door,” recalled Edwards, “and a-

baby’s shoe fell out.” .

The baby’s shoe—a scuffed brown oxford—dropped into
-the mud. Edwards stared. “That’s all right,” said the rough-
shaven man as he got into the car. He was given a lift
to the shopping center, where he walked away without
having said a word.

Another hour passed. At 10:45 a.M., Deputy Sheriff
Warren Smith saw the abandoned car, ngted the license
number “Illinois .233250,” called the dispatcher at Tulsa
and asked if there was a stolen car report on the vehicle.

Tulsa sent a Teletype to Springfield, Iinois—and the -

word came back, “Registration tag for Carl Mosser, At-
wood, Illinois—no stolen report.” so ; :
Towed to a garage, the car was thoroughly examined.
On the door frame was an oil service sticker from a
Hammond, Illinois, gas station dated 30 December 1950. It
showed the mileage at time of servicing—15,500 miles. °
The car’s speedometer now régistered 18,600 miles.
The trip from Hammond to Tulsa was less than 600 miles.
—the unexplained difference of 2,500 miles held fearful im-
plications. , z

On the floor of the vehicle lay an unmailed postcard, :

Th
seat,
cartr
the kt
fired

On
with
inclu


Klee

16

“Take U. S. 66 all the way,” Chris had advised by
long-distance phone when his brother had asked for
the best route. :

It was the first big overnight trip for the family—they
had the back seat piled high with blankets so that the
children could nap while the parents took turns driving.

Mrs. Dorothy Belle Adair, waitress at. the Will Rogers

otel Coffee Shop, in Claremore, Oklahoma, recalls how.
the little group.came in for breakfast at 7 A. M. on De-
cember 30th. ,

.“The man helped the children off with their wraps, and
helped them decide what to order. The children were
such darlings—they kept running to lock at the fish pond
in the lobby while their orders were being prepared. While
they were eating, their parents made them sit at the counter
—but as soon as they were through, they went to the lobby
again to stare at the fish. The man read a newspaper and
the woman wrote some postcards. When they left, I said
‘good-by’ to the little girl. Her mother said, ‘Tell the lady
by’ and the child turned to face me and said ‘By.’”

One of the postcards which Thelma Mosser mailed from
‘Claremore that morning was addressed to Mr. and Mrs.

Clarence Day—an aunt and uncle who lived in Bement,

Illinois. It read:

Dear People— ;
We are seeing the USA in our Chevvie ha. On Route.
66. Had no trouble so far. X your fingers. Kids have
done wonderful. :

The. Mossers

The Mossers went westward on U. S. 66 and a few hours
later at a curve in the road near Luther, Oklahoma, they
met up with the black convertible driven by the droopy-
eyed gunman.

‘Kermit Mackey, a local resident, rounded the curve and

chanced upon the incident at 10:45 a.m. “Two cars were

facing each other,” he recalls, “about 100 yards apart. The
car headed east had Texas plates. Its driver walked to the
Chevrolet: His hands were in the side pockets of his leather
jacket, and he kept his head down as he went to the other
car.” ; .

Mackey returned from town a few minutes later, saw.
that the black car, a Buick, was still abandoned at the
side of the road, and when he got home, he notified the
State Highway Patrol. His call went in at 11:30 a. M., just
about the time that Archer was able to get to a telephone

‘and report his experiences at the hands of the gunman. As

a result, Trooper Luzon Smith was dispatched to the scene.
He found the connecting rod had, been burned out—the
motor, oil and water were still very hot—and he ordered
the car towed to a garage at Luther. Before the hour
passed, Archer- had reclaimed it.

So far as the authorities were concerned, it -was a quick
recovery of a stolen car, and all that remained to be done
was to identify the gunman, and put a routine alarm out

_for him.

- When the hitchhiker’s brown duffel bag was found on
the front seat, the possibility of identification looked prom-
ising. : :

Besides some T-shirts and blue jeans, there were a pho-
tograph of three children—two boys and a girl—in a frame
marked “Alexander Studios—Kirksville, Missouri,” two
pairs of eyeglasses with lenses for nearsighted vision, and
a receipt for a .32 caliber Colt automatic pistol, sold by the
Boston Dry Goods Company, El Paso, Texas, to W. E. Cook,
St. Louis, Missouri.

U. S. 66, sometimes called “Main Street of America,”
runs the gamut of hot and cold, mountains and prairies,
breath-taking scenic beauty and sordid ugliness. Traffic
roars along its surface day and night, and police prowl

‘ears rove it ceaselessly. However, the Mossers’ blue Chevvie

was ideal from a criminal’s viewpoint—it was a widely
used model, had an unobtrusive color, and numbered
among its passengers three children who were a perfect
foil to divert suspicion.

Deputy Smith examines Mosser car. **The man opened
the door, and a baby’s shoe fell out,” a witness had said

cg (iy aE a, Be
is tt 5
oe

*]’ve already killed seven . .. you’re going to be the
eighth,” killer told Deputy Waldrip, here with his wife

As a flash of lightning illumines a storm-tossed landscape,
so witness’ reports give a sharp and sudden insight into
one of the most*vicious.terror-rides in the annals of crime.

At the very start there was a heartbreaking chance of
rescue.

Shortly after 11 a. Mm. a’detective of the Oklahoma State
Bureau of Investigation was parked near Luther at the
junction of U. S. 66 and‘77. “A truck was holding up a
line of cars,” he recalls, ‘and I checked the license plates.
First there was a Missouri Dodge, then a local Ford, then
a blue Chevrolet with Illinois plates and red attachments
on the wind wings. Two men were in the front seat, a wo-
man and some children in the back. The man beside the

driver was bareheaded, and wore a brown jacket with a -

Robe:
killer

fur Cc
dresse
light «


rts, Ray-
tte Street
3, bushy-
in we get —
yway?”

man was
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.e man in
head like
jut loud.”
as lost-on
could ‘de-
iver said,

:, was the
rver, pro-
a, Arkan-
ls: “The
2 children
he driver
n any. I

inc mines,
the early

1e another
‘rol of the
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and tar-

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nut a spot-.
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to be

a, on

ie car was ~
»ping Cen-
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3, and .took
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ione for a

2 ditch for
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ds, “and a-

‘opped into
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riven a lift

ay without ~

uty Sheriff
the license
xr at Tulsa
‘he vehicle.

s—and the°

Aosser, At-

camined.
xer from a
ser 1950. It
miles. ~
miles,

in 600 miles.

fearful im-

2d postcard,

with a view of Hooker’s Cut, between Waynesville and
Rolla, Missouri. Addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Leslie Barcus,
Hammond, Illinois, it read: ‘ -
‘ Dear Mother and Dad:
Stopped for coffee and sandwiches at 1:30 Sat morn.
Drove 400 miles. Kids are doing fine. Seen some hills.
: Thelma.

There was a splotch of blood on the left corner of the rear
seat, and several bullet holes in the upholstery. Six empty
cartridges and four bullets were found. Powder burns on
the blankets piled on the back seat showed shots had been
fired at close range from the front seat.. .

On: the left’ front fender was a lady’s brown loafer shoe
‘with a crepe sole, and inside the car were a variety of items,
including:

1—A key case with Illinois driver’s licenses of Carl and
Thelma Mosser. . :

2—A pair of brown fur-lined men’s gloves, the palms of
which Were stuck together with blood. :

3—A child’s green snow suit. -

4—A small overnight bag with clothing and cosmetics.

5—A blue baby-blanket. oo

6—Two children’s cowboy hats, one black, one orange.

7—Numerous pieces of toweling, knotted in ‘strips and
torn apart at the edge.

8—A folder of ten $20 traveler’s checks signed “Carl
Mosser.” .

With such clues indicating murder, the largest posse in
the history of Tulsa County was soon scouring the near-by
Osage Hills, while to Director J. Edgar Hoover’s. trained

oe .D FBI
TO AVOID PROSECUTION (ROBBERY)
Prag a ae ff ‘

0, we?

ONS

?

JR.

EDWA K,

BEEN ARRESTED FOR HIGHWAY ROBBERY,

heehee

a ‘
in 3 GT ase ‘

UELIEVED 70 GE MVED nD 1S CONSIDERED EXTROELY OMGEROU, ——_
int’ was filed before a U. 8. Commissioner at Oklahoma City, Okla-
4, 1951, charging thie eubdject with violating Title 16, U. 5. Code,

1075, in that he fled from the state of Oklahoma to avoid prosecution for the —

wa eV Re PAE aS ‘

_ possession information regarding the whereabouts of

@ comsunicate with the undersigned, or with the nearest office

of Investigation, 8. Department of Justice, the local ad-
et. forth Ot the reverse side pf thie notice.

Special Agents of the FBI went the task of tying together.
the widely scattered leads which were pouring in from

_ Texas, Arkansas, Illinois and Missouri.

First clue to the identification of the droopy-eyed gun-
man came from the items in the duffel bag abandoned in
Archer’s car. The receipt for the pistol bought, in El Paso
was made out to “W, E. Cook, St. Louis.” In St. Louis the
name meant nothing, but on checking the photographer in
Kirksville, Missouri, whose name appeared on the frame of
the photograph, it was discovered that the pictures were
those of the children of a woman whose brother was William
Edward Cook, Jr. of Joplin, Missouri.

Checked against the fact that the hitchhiker had told
Archer his destination was Joplin, the lead now looked
very promising. .

On the afternoon of January 4th, the FBI Resident Agent
at Joplin received urgent instructions to develop this lead.
In a matter of minutes: he located a police file which indi-
cated that Cook had served time in the state penitentiary.
A flash to Jefferson City alerted another FBI, Resident
Agent, and a vigorous investigation into every known fact
of the subject’s appearance, record, habits and prior life’
was soon under way, .

His most recent photograph, taken in 1946, showed him
to be stolid-faced, with a broad nose, and thick, prominent
lips—one of his nicknames was “Eskimo.” He was unusually
short—about five feet five inches—and was known to walk
with a rolling gait. Several sets of initials and mottoes were
tattooed'on his body—the most characteristic of which was
a self-pitying legend on the knuckles of his left hand
which read: .

HARD
LUCK

One of 11 children, his mother died’ when he was two
years old and he lived awhile with his older sister, before
being. placed in a county home in Joplin. When he was 14,
he ran away from the home and was put in the state train-
ing school as a delinquent. The next year, when he was
paroled to a sister who was a Salvation Army worker, he
robbed a cab driver, and was sentenced to the reformatory.
Here he escaped, tried to steal a car, was caught and got.
another five years. By that time he was big enough and hard
enough to be transferred to the state penitentiary. His
sentence was cemmuted in June 1950 and afterward he
wandefed about the country, visiting relatives in Florida
and California, working as a. dishwasher, berry picker,
railroad laborer. :

The last time he had been seen in Joplin was November
1950. At that time he had told his 72-year-old father,
William E. Cook, Sr., “I’m gonna live by the gun and roam.
No one is ever gonna send me back to the pen.” °

Such were the major facts known about Cook as the FBI
manhunt swung into high gear. .

The gunman’s photograph was sped to Tulsa, where his
movements were traced as follows: .

At the Osage Hills Shopping Center he had hailed a cab
to the city proper, where he had entered the J. C, Penney
store and purchased new clothing—light gray trousers and a
maroon sports shirt, dumping his old clothes into a waste-
basket. Later they were examined and found to be blood-
stained. :

But there was no clue to where he had gone afterward.

However, at El Paso, Texas, FBI Agents had traced the
.82 Colt to its original owner, and by dint of screening and
sifting a section of farmyard which had been used as a
target range were able to obtain two .32.cartridge cases.
These were rushed to the FBI Laboratory in Washington.
Comparisons of the markings on the cartridges found inside
and around the Mosser car showed that they had been
fired from the same weapon. (Continued on page 90)

FBI “wanted” flyers were spread widely in
vast. manhunt that spanned two countries


n opened
had said

; to be the
ith his wife

ed landscape,
1 insight into
nals of crime.
ng chance of

ry -lahoma State
uuther at the
holding up a

woe ae ee

5 aa 3

license plates.
‘al Ford, then
* d attachments
ynt seat, a WO-
jan beside the
jacket with a-

This is the grim scene that greeted officers’ stares when
they beamed searchlight down an abandoned shaft

aS :
$4 mi Sea Sento inag het ri a
ve a, ot eh te * ‘S OA Py te ig eae eee ~e4
. " pt:

Fireman Henry Cook (10 hin of slayer) donned air mask
and performed heartbreaking job of recovering victims

hae, Pale ~

Robert Dewey; victim No. 6. A Under constant threat of death, : site ie: Tas deiniadion, Tarues Burke

killer’s bullets ended his plans = Forrest Damron (above) and...

fur collar. I thought it was unusual .that he should be
dressed in such a heavy garment while the others all wore
light clothing. Then the line passed.”

There was another close call—even more poignant in its
tragic implications—later that same day.

At Wichita Falls, Texas, just south of the Oklahoma line,
a local storekeeper was slicing luncheon meat when the
blue Chevvie drove up and two men got out. They entered
the store. _

As they crossed the threshold the first man wheeled on
the second, grabbed his arms, and cried, “For God’s sake
help me; this man has a gun. He is going to kill me and
my family.” - " :

The storekeeper, an elderly man, was bewildered. : “If

(above), were held hostage 8: days

he’s got a gun, get him out of here,” was the reply. “I don‘t
want any shooting in my store.” ‘

And so the two men scuffled, without a hand being lifted
to intervene. They swung around the store, crashed into a
window, smashed a pane. Then the second man stepped
back, revealed a gun under his coat, and marched the first
man back to the car. .

“Hey,” called the grocer, “who’s going to pay for this
window?” , ,

But they left without answering, and soon the blue car
drove away.

There was another unheeded plea for help at Iowa Park,
Texas—ten miles west of Wichita Falls. It was Saturday
night and the town’s youngsters were promenading the

The Mossers, tragic victims of a Oklahoma state and county police view At the Joplin mineshaft, firemen
young man’s wild lust for blood. rural road where Mosser car was found. hoist out the five dead Mossers.
‘ J

he ordered the terrified woman to lift the little girl into
the back seat with the boys and climbed in beside her, hold-
ing the pistol on her husband.

The man at the wheel swore at the gunman.“ ‘Twarn’t
for my family, I'd—!”

“Shut up!” the kid snapped. “Now, get goin’!”

While the three frightened children crouched whimper-
ing in the back seat, their parents held at gunpoint ‘by
the stranger, the car started off toward Oklahoma City...,

At 7:30 Saturday evening,..a two-door, blue Chevrolet
sedan with the Illinois license plate pulled up in front of
a filling station near Wichita Falls, Tex., more than 100
miles to the southwest.

Two men got out of the front seat, where a woman re-
mained, One was of medium height and in his 30s, the
other a head shorter and much younger. As the attendant
came out of the station, the two men suddenly grappled.
Pinioning the young man’s arms, the older man shouted,
“Help me! Help me! He's going to kill me and take my
wife!”

Before the attendant could go to his aid, the young man
wrenched free, whipped out a: gun and forced the older
man to get back in behind the wheel. Then he climbed
in beside the woman, slammed the door and the sedan
roared out on the highway, heading east.

The attendant hurried back inside the station and
phoned Deputy Sheriff Dick Mann, in Wichita Falls, to
whom he excitedly related the dramatic scene he had just
witnessed. In a matter of minutes, a description of the
blue sedan and its occupants, including the young gunman,
went out with a pickup alarm over the statewide teletype
and radio network.

Special agents of the FBI in Dallas, already at work on
the kidnap-robbery of Lee Archer earlier that day near
Lubbock, took an immediate interest in the new alarm.
For Archer's description of the young man who robbed
him closely resembled that of the gunman seen that evening
in the filling station near Wichita Falls. The G-men theo-
rized that the robber had ditched Archer’s car somewhere
in the Southwest and then commandeered the blue Chevro-
let, holding its. occupants captive.

The night passed, however, without further word of the
youthful gunman, the blue Chevvie. sedan or its other
occupants. ;

Early Sunday morning, Archer's stolen car was found
abandoned on Route 66 near Luther, Okla., a few miles

northeast of Oklahoma City. A careful examination of
the machine disclosed no fingerprints, but between the
cushion and back of the front seat, local officers discovered
a cash receipt for the purchase of a new .32 caliber revolver
from a sporting goods store in El Paso, Tex., on the Mexicas:
border. The slip was made out to a man with an Oklahoma
City address.

A check by FBI agents in that city later in the day soon
revealed, as they suspected, that both the name and address
on the sales slip were phony.

But on Monday, a valuable clue to the true identity of
the gun purchaser was obtained by G-men who visited
the store in El Paso where the weapon was sold. The clerk
who made the sale recalled that the buyer, a short young’
man with curly dark hair and a drooping right eyelid, had
a peculiar tattoo on the back of his left hand. Needled
into the skin on four fingers, reading out toward. the tips,
were two sets of letters spelling the words H-A-R-D L-U-C-K.

If this man had a police or prison record, the G-men
knew, such a distinctive tattoo almost certainly would be
listed in the files, making it possible to identify him.

On Wednesday, January 8, while identification files were
being scanned in many cities throughout the western part
of the country, the blue Chevrolet with the Illinois license
pine was found abandoned in the hills near Tulsa, Okla.

t was bullet-pierced and splattered with blood, but its
occupants were missing.

The car was discovered in the weeds along a seldom used
country road by Deputy Sheriff Warren Smith, of Osage
County, who with other Oklahoma officers had been hunt.
ing for the blue sedan since Saturday night. Ignition keys
still hung from the dashboard.

Searching the machine with state policemen, Deputy
Smith found $200 in travelers’ checks scattered over the
blood-caked seat cushions and the floor. The checks were
made out to one Carl Mosser.

There were three bullet holes in the back seat and one
in the front. Several exploded .32 caliber revolver car-
tridges lay on the floor boards, and the officers pried four
bloody slugs out of the upholstery.

Clinging to a splotch of dried blood in the back seat were
several strands of fine blonde hair, apparently that of a

child. On the floor below were two trampled Hopalong
Cassidy. hats. ;

“This is murder—mass murder,” Smith phoned back to
his office soon after the car was discovered. “We're almost

Salesman Rob:
killed while re:

certain a whol
now of finding
State police
side or on the
prints around
tangible clue
Notified tha
the FBI quick!
in Illinois. Tl]
whose name a}
33, of Atwoo
Decatur.

Inquiries U

near Atwood «
29, and their
and Pamela S$
a trip to Albu
Chris, an Arn
arrived.

Deputy Sm
reading on tt
istered 18,601
was serviced
reading of 15
is slightly ove

“If this car
shows,’’ Smit!
could be hun

News of th:
of what polic
Tulsa evenin
stands, two ©
had been hai]
day.

Both witne
lonely counu
morning wh«
the ditch. A
and jeans wh
each driver
ditch.

One motor
on. The secc
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driver notice
some sort of |


mineshatt, firemen
five dead Mossers.

tul examination of
but between the

1 officers discovered
32 caliber revolver
ex., on the Mexican
with an Oklahoma

ter in the day soon
‘Name and address

ie true identity of
“men who visited
vas sold. The clerk
ver, a short young:
3 right eyelid, had
‘ft hand. Needled
‘t toward the tips,
H-A-R-D L-U-C-K.
ecord, the G-men
ertainly would be
identify him.
ification files were
the western part
he Illinois license
rear Tulsa, Okla.
h blood, but its

ng a seldom used
Smith, of Osage
s had been hunt.
ht. Ignition keys

icemen, Deputy
attered over the
Che checks were

ck seat and one
er revolver car-
ficers pried four

€ back seat were
ently that of a
pled Hopalong

»shoned back to
We're almost

Salesman Robert H. Dewey was
killed while reaching for a cigaret.

certain a whole family has been wiped out. It’s a question
now of finding their bodies.”

State police technicians found no fingerprints either in-
side or on the exterior of the sedan. There were no foot-
prints around the car nor leading away from it, and no
tangible clue to the identity of the killer.

Notified that the blood-drenched sedan had been found,
the FBI quickly got in touch with motor vehicle authorities
in Illinois. They reported the car was owned by the man
whose name a on the travelers’ checks—Carl Mosser,
33, of Atwood, IIl., a small community 24 miles from
Decatur.

Inquiries there revealed that Mosser had left his farm
near Atwood on the previous Friday with his wife, Thelma,

29, and their three children, Ronald Dean, 7; Gary Carl, 5, -

and Pamela Sue, 3. They had set out in the family car on
a trip to Albuquerque, N. M., to visit Mosser's twin brother,
Chris, an Army lieutenant stationed there. But they never
arrived.

Deputy Smith and the other officers were puzzled by the

reading on the speedometer of the Mosser car, which reg: -

istered 18,601 miles. A sticker placed on the car when it
was serviced the previous Thursday in Illinois showed a
reading of 15,500 miles, a difference of 3,101 miles. Atwood
is slightly over 600 miles from Tulsa.

“If this car was driven anywhere as far as that difference
shows,” Smith observed, “the bodies of the Mosser family
could be hundreds of miles from here.”

News of the car's discovery and the horrible implications
of what police found inside made the front pages of the
Tulsa evening papers. Soon after the first editions hit the
stands, two Tulsa motorists came forward to report they
had been hailed by a man in the Mosser car on the previous
day.

Both witnesses told police they were driying along the
lonely country road in the hills north of the city Tuesday
morning when they passed the blue Chevrolet stalled in
the ditch. A short, dark young man in a leather jacket
and jeans who stood beside the empty sedan flagged down
each driver and asked help to get the car out of .the
ditch.

One motorist, who didn’t like his looks, refused and drove
on. The second offered to give the young mana lift into
town, and he accepted. He said little on the way, but the
driver noticed he had an oddly drooping right eyelid and
some sort of tattoo on the back of his left hand. The motor-

Deputy “luckiest man” ibaa

spared because his wife befriend

Captives of a trigger-happy youth
were J. Burke and F. Dameron.

was
Cook.

ist had dropped him at a drug store, where he said he would
phone a garage.

Police rushed to the store and questioned its clerks,
two of whom recalled seeing the young man there around
noon on Tuesday. He bought two packs of cigarets and
received change of a $10 bill to make a phone call, at the
same time asking the number of the nearest taxi service.
A few minutes after he made the call, a cab pulled up
outside, the young man got in and drove away. .

A quick check of the cab company’s records showed that
the driver who responded to the call had taken his fare
across town and dropped him in front of a restaurant on
the main highway leading west to Sand Springs. The driver
told police the young man had not spoken to him during
the trip, except to give directions and ask to be let out.
No one in the restaurant recalled seeing him there.

Advised by Tulsa powce that the trail had ended abruptly
on the western outskirts of the city, FBI agents concluded
that the suspected murderer of the Mosser family had hit
the road again. The young man with a gun was hitchhiking
west—but to where? When would he strike again? In view
of his record, the G-men thought it would be soon.

In a familiar pattern, the FBI was racing against time
to identify, trail and capture a desperate killer before he
could take more lives. If he had left but a single fingerprint
behind, the job of the G-men would have been much easier.
His print classification, set up on an automatic punch card
machine in Washington, could be swiftly checked against

~ the many thousands in the national files.

But instead, the FBI had only the general physical de-
scription of the suspect, including the fact that the fingers
of his left hand were tattooed with the words H-A-R-D
L-U-C-K. Police and prison records in scores of cities had
to be carefully checked.

The clue of the odd tattoo paid off, however, sooner
than they expected. On Friday, January 5, the FBI flashed
a nationwide alarm for the arrest of a young ex-convict,
and police set up roadblocks across half a dozen states.
In the records of the Missouri State Penitentiary, the G-men
had found a file on the man they were convinced was their
quarry: 22-year-old William Edward Cook, Jr. Up to this
time, his record had been obscure. Now the FBI studied
it carefully. .

Murder was something new for Billy Cook, but his crimi-
nal record began when he was only 11. His mother had
died when he was 5, and his [Gontinued on page 69]

hain

murder °

The whine of hot tires on the highway turned
the kid's head west. He stood at the edge of
U. S, Route 62 in northwest Texas, a few miles
above Lubbock, watching the car speeding
toward him. One hand on the gun in the right
pocket of his jeans, he raised the other to signal
the approaching driver.

The car pulled up alongside him, its lone
occupant a gray-haired, grinning man at the
wheel. The kid grinned back.

“Headin’ north?” he asked.

“Sure am, son. Hop in!”

The gun was in the driver's ribs before he
could move. “Get out!” snarled the kid, and
he obeyed.

He stood with arms upraised as the young
gunman frisked him quickly and yanked out
his bulging wallet. Still holding the .32 caliber
revolver on the driver, the kid marched him
around back of the car, forced him to unlock
the trunk and climb inside. Then the kid
slammed the trunk lid shut, twisted the key
in the lock and walked back to the driver's seat.
He slipped behind the wheel and the sedan
roared away.

As the car raced along the highway, the cap-
tive owner worked feverishly to free himself
from the trunk, where he was slowly stifling.
Faint and dizzy from lack of air, he jimmied
the lid with a tire tool until at last he suc-
ceeded in snapping the lock. Fresh air rushed
in to clear his throbbing head.

He bided his time for another ten miles,
when he felt the car slow down. Lifting the
trunk lid gently, he sud-
denly unloaded and rolled
<lown a steep embankment
into a ditch. He lay still
for five minutes, listening
to the car’s engine fade in
the distance. Then he got
to his feet, climbed pain-
fully back up to the road
and stumbled off to seek
help.

A passing motorist picked
up the bruised and bleed-
ing man and drove him

identified himself as Lee Archer, 56, a me-
chanic, of nearby Tahoka, and told how a
youthful hitchhiker had robbed him of $85 and
his car. It was now the late afternoon of Sat-
urday, December 30, 1950.

Archer described the gunman as around 21,
slim and wiry, standing about five feet, four
inches, with curly dark hair, dark eyes, thick
lips and a prominent nose. He was bareheaded,
wore a black leather jacket and blue jeans.

“There seemed to be something wrong with
his right eye,” Archer added. “The lid drooped
but never winked. I think maybe it was a glass
eye. He sure had me fooled when I picked him
up. Thought he was just a harmless kid until
he pulled that gun.”

The description of the hitchhiker recalled
no one known to the Lubbock authorities, but
because his victim had been kidnaped and_he
was probably heading across the state line into
Oklahoma, they notified the FBI.

At that very moment, the young man with
a gun was speeding through the streets of Okla-
homa City, heading northeast on Route 66.
Fifteen miles out of the city, near the little
town of Luther, the car’s overtaxed motor broke
down and the sedan stuttered to a stop at the
edge of the highway.

Cursing, thé kid sprang out, threw up the
hood and fumbled with the engine in an effort
to restart it. When this failed, he turned and
flagged down an oncoming 1949 blue Chevrolet
sedan with an Illinois license plate, traveling
in the opposite direction.

As the car drew up beside
him, he saw it was crowded.
A dark-haired man in his
30s was at the wheel, his at-
tractive blonde wife at his
side holding a_ golden.
haired little girl. Squeezed
into the rear seat beside a
pile of suitcases and folded
clothing were two small
boys wearing Hopalong
Cassidy hats.

It was a bad deal for the
kid, but he needed trans-

back to Lubbock. At the Prophetic tattoos on Cook’s fin- portation and needed it
sheriff's office there, he gers spelled out H-A-R-D L-U-C-K. fast. Whipping out his gun,


(TRUE POLICE CASES, MK July, 1951).

56, a me-
old how a
of $85 and
on of Sat-

‘ound 2],
eet, four
eyes, thick
‘reheaded,
jeans.
rong with
] drooped
vas a glass
icked him
kid until

recalled
ities, but
d and he
line into

1an with
of Okla-
Oute 66,
he little
or broke
»p at the

Up the
in effort
led and
hevrolet '
ty , _-BY DAVID R. GEORGE _
) beside ‘ \ eS
crowded. if ty ~ | SS ~~
in his em me, _ See
, his at- uy , ; Ma 5.3 Jj ;
‘at his ; “ J
zolden- H , : } " \ k
zed : alae ok istly. two-wee
side a - ' x . : Wingo jaunt. Safely handcufted
tolded : f t i 2 a d shbdued, Wil am E. Cook,
small f RARE ea: Mi 4 ee a sits glumly i lana, sexs
long At hea : ; % ico, Police Chief Morales’ office.
or the
trans-
d it
gun,


< Street as big as life only yesterday,”
he said. “What d'ya mean, am I sure?
4isten, I’ve helped that girl pick out
\resses dozens of times, I know her
1s well as I know my own name.”

The salesgirl proved to be correct,
‘or a short while afterward neighbors
nformed the Sheriff that Nancy had
eturned home to her mother.

The newspaper story, originally car-
ied by local papers alone, meanwhile
iad been picked up by papers through-
ut Northern California and was pro-
lucing an unexpected response.
Before Cox could disclose that Nancy
as Safe, three different sources already
ad asserted they knew who the real
ictim was,

“HE first possibility was Joan Stoes-

ser of Stockton. This nineteen-
ear-old girl, missing since December
8, allegedly owned a bracelet identical
) that found on the torso.

Alameda county officials, on the other
and, felt certain that Elaine Smyth,
lissing since August, was the victim.

Finally, there was Rita Crawford, 13,
‘ho had been missing from her Sacra-
1ento home since November 23.

All three leads appeared promising,
nd all of them failed.

By working late into that night Cox
nd his men proved that none of the
aree girls could be the river victim.

Rita Crawford was the first possibil-
‘y to be scratched off the list. Neither
er age nor her weight matched those
f the torso. f

Second to be eliminated was Joan
itoesser. A phone call to a hospital,
‘here the girl once had been a patient
evealed that Joan had five physical
haracteristics which did not corre-
pond with the description of the vic-

im,

Elaine Smyth was discarded as the
hird possibility when it was learned
hat she had a prominent scar from an
ppendectomy. The torso had no
cars at all.

To prevent further false identifica-
ions, Cox decided to release the de-
cription of the torso victim. which
soone had built up from his autopsy.
nstead of giving the data to the local
vapers alone, Cox sent it to the major
vire services as well. In this way the
tory could be picked up by newspapers
ll over America. At the same time
he Sheriff sent out an all-points bul-
etin on the second river victim.
.“The more people who knew about
he case, the more help we're bound
o get,” he told Harry Knoll.

“Help is what we could use a lot of
this point,” replied the undersheriff.

Knoll’s gloom lifted considerably,
1owever, when he opened his mail the
ollowing morning. A Marysville wo-
nan wrote that she had seen a pic-
ure of the mesh bracelet, and that she
velieved she knew where it came from.
Nith her note she enclosed a clipping
rom the catalog of a mail-order house
n Kansas City, Missouri. This clip-
sing showed a photograph of a brace-
et which appeared identical to that
ound on the second torso.

Knoll promptly wrote the Kansas
city company. “The extent to which
shey can help us depends on their
yookkeeping methods,” he said. “But
f we're lucky this lead might break
he case wide open.”

|N ANOTHER direction, the officers’
' luck was proving anything but good.
Numerous reports from law-enforce-
nent agencies all over the country, in-
sluding the FBI, were coming into the
Sheriff's office. The police in all in-
stances, had been unable to identify
che finger-prints of the victim or to
offer any clue to her identity.

“I don’t get it,” said Munizich. “Two
young women get knocked off and no
one identifies them. The whole thing’s
auts. It’s as if those bodies we fished
yut of the river came from nowhere.”

That was the day when Deputy Mc-
Veigh finished his task of dragging the
American River. -

He came into the Sheriff's office in
2 battered gray hat and a pair of vul-
canized boots, a begrimed and mud-
caked figure from head to foot. He
had, he said, finished and if anyone

“thought the job was fun they could

have it.

“Mud and water, that’s what it is,”
he added, “I've splashed and stumbled
through marshes and tulle land so long
that I’m growing water cress for hair.

“And what did we find? Tin cans,
empty beer bottles, old tires, dead fish,
a two-headed turtle, half of a bed-
stead. That's all.”

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ed, For this reason, Sheriff Cox wanted
McVeigh and his men to question every
ex-con in Sacramento who had a record
of a crime against a woman, “And
while you're at it, you might as well
question everyone we're holding in the
county jail,"

Munizich looked more surprised than
McVeigh. “Women, too?”

“Women, too,” Cox said.

ae

When they reached the home of Mrs. Deliphine Downing, officers
found the Lonely Hearts slaying suspects packed and ready to
* flee. For the full facts behind this case, see story on Page 14

McVeigh drew a deep breath, col-
lapsed into a chair and unsuccessfully
tried to light a cigarette from the
watersoaked package in his jacket

ket.

“That,” he said, flinging the pack-
age into the near-by waste-basket, “is
the last straw.”

“Until tomorrow, anyway,” Cox told
him. “Then I want you and your boys
to start on a new job. It won’t be easier
but it will be a heap cleaner.” The
Sheriff went on to explain that there
was a chance the torso slayer might be
someone who already had been arrest-

McVeigh’'s task should have been
fairly routine. It should have required
the usual tact and intelligence but it
shouldn’t have offered any insuperable
difficulties.

That night, however, a freak of na-

ture occurred which was to complicate

McVeigh’s assignment immeasurably.
A strong, high-velocity wind from the
north blew an Arctic air mass over the
state, and California, famed for its
mild Winters, awoke to find itself fac-
ing one of the longest and most bitter
cold spells in its history. Hoboes who
had journeyed west to enjoy heat and

sunshine were confronted with freez-
ing temperatures and frostbite.

By the time night had arrived hun-
dreds of tramps were flocking to jails
throughout California and begging to
be incarcerated as vags. Shelter was
given to as many aa possible but soon
there was no more room. .

And that was where the trouble be-
gan for Deputy McVeigh.

Failing to find a warm bed in one way,
numerous hoboes determined to gain
their goal by other means. Confessions
to unsolved and often uncommitted
crimes poured into Police Headquarters.

“If you give the cops a good enough
yarn they gotta hold you,” was the
Policy of the tramps. “Later, you can
always back down.”

Coincident with the cold spell was
the nation-wide release of the details
of the sécond torso slaying.

Prompted by the theory that con-
fessing to a horrible crime was a surer
way of obtaining the haven of jail than
confessing to a minor one, scores of
vagrants cheerfully admitted they had
hacked the woman to bits and flung her
in the river.

T= simple thing would have been to
turn the would-be killers away en
masse. But McVeigh could not afford
the simple thing. There was always the
one-in-a-million chance that the real
slayer might be among the bogus.

So, hour after hour, the deputy and
his aides carefully listened to the tales
that were brought to them. On the
whole, the confessions were discredited
swiftly. Most of the vags had not read
the entire newspaper story And even
those who had were more than gightly
fuzzy on the details.

A few of the itinerants, however, were
well briefed on the crime and their
confessions had to be checked. In all
instances these admissions eventually
were exploded. :

The prominent publicity the case
was receiving by this time was having
reverberations in other directions and
the problem of false confessions by no
means was confined to hoboes.

For reasons better known to the’

psychiatrist than the police officer, nu-
merous persons were eager to get into
the act.

In Fresno, a music teacher an-
nounced that the torso victim was only
one of the two hundred women he had
killed.

A Pasadena stenographer asserted
she had slain both the river victims at
the prompting of an inner voice.

And to the north, in Eureka, a hard-
ware dealer declared:

“If anyone killed those dames it
must have been me, because I sure hate
women.”

Less on the lunatic fringe but equally
unreliable were the dozens of identifica-
tions of the second victim which poured
into Sacramento. The only note-
worthy fact about these identifications
was that over half of them came from
“4 lower reaches of Southern Califor-
ni :

T THIS point the Kansas City mail-

order house replied to the letter

which Undersheriff Knoll had sent out
earlier.

“Despite a deceptive similarity, our
bracelet is not the same as that found
on the victim,” a company official
wrote. “I am, however, enclosing the
names and addresses of ten of Amer-
ica’s leading manufacturers of costume

- jewelry. Iam positive that one of these

firms will be able to identify the brace-
let for you.”

At Cox’ direction Knoll airmailed
queries to each of these companies. “If
they can’t tag the bracelet, no one can,”
he said.

No sooner had the questionnaires
been sent off than two new develop-
ments occurred.

A pair of San Francisco businessmen
who had been hunting duck along the
American River the previous month re-
ported that they had seen an object
which might have been a head floating
in the stream on December 15.

They had not come forward earlier,
they explained, because they just had
learned of the slaying.

51


Sn a a a OER SS

"For that matter, we didn't seriously
.. believe it could be a head until we read
today's paper," one of the men de=
clared.

The men both said they had seen
the Nouating object about ten yards up-
stream from the H Street bridge.

“As vague and unlikely a lead as I've
ever heard," complained one of Cox’
deputies. “And even if it’s true it
doesn’t do us any good. By now the
head could have drifted to China and
back.”

HE second new lead, however,

seemed anything but vague.

In checking through missing-per-
sons’ files in an attempt to identify the
torso, Inspector Arthur Smith from
central California, had come across the
name of Isobel Bryan. Isobel, a beau-
tiful brunet of nineteen, had vanished
on October 4, 1948, and had not been
heard from since. :

According to juvenile authorities,
Isobel had certain failings which made
it appear possible she might have fall-
en into the company of the wrong man.

Moreover, her description tallied
almost exactly with that of the river
victim. She was slender, well-propor-
tioned, and she had a hammer thumb
on her left hand.

Unfortunately, the girl’s finger-
prints were not on file. Inspector
Smith consequently went to her home
where he finally located several phono-
graph records and a water pitcher
which she had handled shortly before
her disappearance.

Partial, and in some instances badly
smudged finger-prints were obtained
from these objects. These prints were
then compared with those of the torso.
Although the results were not conclu-
sive, they showed several points of sim-
ilarity.

Encouraged by his findings, Smith set
out to locate someone who could make
a positive identification of Isobel if she
were the torso victim. He got two
volunteers in short order.

A mechanic who once had befriended
the girl thought he would recognize-her.
Doctor Robert T. McMahon, a health
director, was positive he could do so.
“She had a baby last year, and I was the
physician who delivered it,” he ex-
plained. ‘

Sheriff Cox; hopeful up to-now that °
the victim had been identified, received _

this last bit of news with all the glee of
a prisoner ascending the gallows. For
according to Coroner Boone’s report the
second woman found in the river never
had been a mother. The first one had,
yes—but long after the first torso had
been found, Isobel Bryan had been
alive and well.

Nevertheless, photos of the second
torso were forwarded to Smith to be
viewed by the mechanic and Doctor Mc-
Mahon. So badly had the body been
rayaged by its stay in the water that
neither man was able to make an
identification.

Bbc ie was only one test left and
Boone suggested it. ‘“‘We’ll have to
perform a second autopsy,” he said.
“Yes, of course our first examination
was performed with the utmost care.-
But medicine isn’t so exact a science
that mistakes are impossible. And ex-
cept for the mother angle the resem-
blance between the torso and Isobel
Bryan is so close that we can’t afford to
take chances.”

On the following day the torso, which
had been buried a week earlier, was ex-
humed and the second autopsy per-
formed by Boone, Doctor Wallace and
Doctor McMahon. This examination
— the Coroner's previous find-
ngs.

Said Doctor McMahon, “This woman
has never borne children, and she most
certainly is not Isobel Bryan.”

Two more days passed and the gloom
was thick in Cox’ office. Scattered on
the Sheriff's desk were replies from
nine of the ten costume-jewelry con-
cerns which had been queried on the
mesh bracelet.

Not one of the firms had been able
to make an identification.

In his hand Cox held the tenth and
last letter, which was from a New York

52

‘spoke.

6 ara en Si wn a ate a Sa a RO lr Cae NI a RI NS aS ok

company. He opened it slowly, fearing
it would contain the same lack of in-
formation as the others,

It did—almost.

The New York concern was unable to
name the maker of the bracelet. Com-
pany experts, however, found the work-

“manship peculiar though good. It was

their considered opinion that the piece
of jewelry had been manufactured in a
foreign country for foreign consump-
tion. ‘

- “Possibly Europe,” the letter con-
cluded. “Possibly South America or
Mexico.”

“So the torso victim was a tourist.
Or she. knew a tourist. Or maybe she
just found the bracelet dangling from
a tree,” Munizich declared. “Let’s ad-
mit it—the killer has outwitted us from
the beginning. We’ve been beaten, and
beaten badly.”

N° ONE contradicted the deputy. For

weeks the officers had been working
frantically. All they had to show for
their efforts was a tangled rubble of
bum leads, false identifications, dead-
end clues and bogus confessions.

But maybe, thought ‘Cox, maybe
when you cleared away the rubble you
had something. left. Not much, of
course, but perhaps just a few unre-
futed fragments of evidence and theory
that could be pieced together to make
a& meaningful picture.

The Sheriff lifted his phone and
switched in to the county jail. “Hello,
McVeigh. Listen, John, come over to
my office. I’m. doing some figuring on
this torso deal and I want every man
who’s. taken a major part in the case
here. No, nothing new has broken. I
merely have an idea.”

McVeigh said, ‘“‘That’s more than I’ve
got.”

The deputy arrived in short order,
and Cox explained his plan. “We've
struggled through a forest of evidence.
Most of that evidence has been proved
false. All that’s.left are a few stray
facts and untested notions. Most of us
have been so close to the case that we’ve
lost our perspective and forgotten even
the things we know to be true.”

Knoll raised his head, his glasses
flashing back the light from Cox’ lamp.
“You want us to remember what we
can?” :

“Yes, and even if it seems daffy don’t
be afraid to mention it.”

Knoll and his fellows nodded. The
Sheriff’s idea was no more than a wing
and a prayer but at least it was better
than nothing. Better than giving up
altogether. Better than admitting that
a savage killer would roam the streets,
— to strike at unprotected women at
will. ;

Munizich creased a match with his
thumb, touched the flame to his pipe
bowl and sucked in a mouthful of
smoke. "

“T’ll start the ball rolling,” he said.
“The obvious facts are those of the
autopsies. Two women, both of them
young and physically attractive, were
killed and dissected.”

Toe was a pause, then Knoll said,
“And they were both killed by the
Same person so far as we can figure.”

The undersheriff’s remark stimulated
a brief flurry of other odd bits of in-
formation.

One of the women had worn a pe-
culiar bracelet, which apparently had
not been manufactured in the United
States:

Both women could be generally clas-
sified as Latin types. pat

“Don't forget the outstanding fact
about the second girl,” McVeigh said
bitterly. “Her death was _ publicized
throughout the country, yet no one
could tell us who she was.” .

Cox, his forehead furrowed with
lines of concentration, suddenly caught
a glimmering of light as the deputy:
The Sheriff leaned forward in
his chair, desperately striving for a
conscious formulation of his intuition.
But the harder he fought to grasp the

‘idea, the more elusive and tenuous it

became.

The other men were silent. The rad-
iator hissed sibilantly and there was
a dew of steam on the windowpanes. The
atmosphere inside the plaster-walled

‘river.

ee. Ue

office was clogged with tension. A veil
of bluish tobacco amoke clung to the
ght and the ash-trays in the room were
cluttered with burnt-out matches and
crumpled cigarette butts,

“If I Knew why so many of those
phony identifications came from South-
ern California, I might be able to make
some sense out of this thing,” Cox said
irritably.

“Well,” replied McVeigh, “there are
a lot of Latin type women in that area.”

Understanding exploded in Cox’
brain. The bits of the puzzle, former-
ly jumbled and unrelated, slipped into
place like clockwork.

“That's it!” he cried. “No wonder!
The very fact that no one in the United
States has identified the women gives
us the answer. The victims didn’t come
from this country ahy more than the
bracelet did!” .

Knoll was skeptical. “If the women
were immigrants, their disappearance
would have been reported through of-
ficial channels. .,They couldn’t have en-
tered the United States in the first place
without reliable friends or relatives liv-
ing here.” :
“por they could have been smuggled

across the
Munizich, gesturing with“ his pipe.
“Remember, they’re Latin types.”

“And the bracelet may be Mexican,”
added McVeigh.

So there it was. A new, incomplete
theory, yet one which had the solid ring
of truth. .

At least one of the missing facets of
the story could be supplied by imagina-
tive guesswork. All of the officers agreed
it was likely that both women had been
lured into the country by golden
promises. :

“Probably the old line about fur-
lined houses, fast yachts and paper

-handkerchiefs made out of twenty-

dollar bills,”
deputies, :

There was only one drawback to the
detectives’ new theory. It didn’t help
them in their search for the killer.

Or did it?

Cox, remembering his earlier con-
versation with Boone, said, “We have
reason to think the slayer is a short,
slight man who lives fairly near the
American River. If he was able to
smuggle two women across the border,
he must know Mexico pretty well. My
guess is that he was once a Mexican
citizen.” =

Knoll strode impatiently to the
window. “That narrows the hunt down
some, but not enough. It will take us
months to question the inhabitants of
every home, shanty and hobo jungle
along the river.”

“Can you suggest something better?”
Cox asked acidly.

“As a matter of fact, yes. Those
two hunters from San Francisco told
us they thought they saw a head float-
ing in the current a few yards above
the H Street bridge. Let’s assume they
saw correctly. They spotted the head
on December fifteenth. According to’
the Coroner’s autopsy, the killing
couldn’t have taken place earlier than
December thirteenth. That means if
we start at the bridge and work. up-
stream we can’t be more than two days
away from where the head was thrown
in the water.”

UNIZICH said, “Probably less. The
river was low in December and the
current slow.” ‘

“It’s a flyer, but we'll chance it,” de-
clared Cox. “Okay, let’s:go.”

Every available officer was thrown
into the manhunt. Aiding the four key
officers were Tom Howard, Charles
Wearn, Roy Coy, Lew Chapman, Ed
Lewis, Chuck Ogle, Louis Fatur and a
host of other deputies.

The giant search began on that day
of January fifteenth. At Cox’ direc-
tion the officers split into two groups.
The first group, headed by Cox himself,
was to cover the south bank of the
The second, led by Knoll, was
assigned to the north bank.

“I want every person living within a
mile of the river questioned,” ordered
the Sheriff.

The officers worked all that day and
most of the next without obtaining a

quipped one of the

border,” cut in-

lead. They visited houses of all sizes

and descriptions, One moment found
them Ab the door of a neal, while col-
tage with a bright, green flag of a lawn;
the next found them at a dilapidated
shack with a sagging roof and rotted,
weather-stained boarding. :
Even more varied than the houses
were the people who lived in them.
Late on the afternoon of January six-
teenth, Cox and his men in rapid order
queried an aged carpenter with a pep-
per-and-salt beard, a placid farmer’s
wife who seemed perpetually on the
verge of falling asleep, a hamburger-
stand proprietor with a good business
and a bad temper, a soft-spoken dry-
goods salesman and a dry little stick of

a woman dressed in high-button shoes

and faded finery.

By twilight the officers had reached
the outskirts of the small community
of Brighton. Here and there a light

shining in a window signaled the ap--

proach of darkness. The air was crisp
and quiet and smoke from chimneys
seemed to hang motionless against the
blue dusk, as though suspended in some
isolated middle distance.

Now, walking down a dusty road
edged with wild berry bramble and
manzanita scrub, the officers saw be-
fore them a shingle bungalow. A blonde
in a severe black dress and spike-heeled
pumps stood on the stoop, angrily ad-
dressing a teen-age girl.

“Coming home an hour late, the very
idea!" said the blonde. “I’m going to
whale the tar out of you!”

“But, Mother!” the girl protested.

“Never mind! All sorts of things
might have happened to you!”

“Such as?” asked Cox from the picket
gate

Ta woman.took one look at the offi-
cers, gestured her daughter into the
house, then came down the path to the
fence. “It’s those torso killings. I heard
today that someone in town knows who
committed them. I figure if that’s true
the killer must be someone in town.”

The blonde added that she had not
reported what she’d heard for two rea-
sons. First, she did not know the name
of the person who could identify the
killer. Second, she wasn't at all sure
that the rumor had any basis in truth.
Nevertheless, she had been extremely
worried and was relieved that the detec-
tives had arrived.

Munizich asked, “Why do you think
the rumor might be false?”

The blonde leaned forward, exuding
a faint fragrance of jasmine and
smiling as though she’d been asked the
world's most foolish question. “Because
George told me, of course.”

“George who?”

The blonde wrinkled her forehead.
“Why, that’s funny. Come to think of
it, I don’t know his last name. I don’t
believe anyone else does either. We all
simply call him George.” |

Under further querying, the woman
revealed that George was a jack-of-
all trades who went from door to door
performing whatever tasks were allot-
ted him from cleaning windows to mow-
ing lawns. Although he was a reliable
worker he had a-habit of talking to
himself.

The blonde said, “But you ought to
talk to him anyway.”

That was exactly what the officers
intended to do. They obtained direc-
tions to George’s home from the woman
and went on their way.

WENTY minutes later found them

‘once more on the river bank. It was
night now and the sky was pitch black.
The muddy path was choked with weeds
and thistle and on both sides of it rose
tangled jungles of foliage. Every now
and then Cox’ flashlight would surprise
a frog or turtle on the edge of the path
and for a moment the creatures would
stare up at the intruders with tiny,
jeweled eyes before they disappeared
into the reeds. And yards away was the
river itself, dark and inscrutable and
treacherous.

Then the officers came to a cove. An-
chored amidst an overhanging canopy
of Willow and acacia trees was an an-
cient houseboat.

In single file Cox, Munizich and Mc-
Veigh crossed the creaking gangplank


to the deck. Cox rapped sharply on
the cabin door, ‘There was no answer,
He rapped again, He heard a scultling
sound from within and then the door
was flung open.

Facing the oflicers was a stout, bare-
footed man in a thready bathrobe
which he evidently had donned in haste.
His eyes were still narrow with sleep
and pale, straw-colored hair fell for-
ward over his forehead. He held a
kerosene lamp in one upraised hand
,and the lamp cast a jagged pattern of
ioe light over the shadowy deck.

“Well, he said, glancing blankly
from one officer to another. ‘‘Well.”

“We're looking for the torso killer.
We have reason to believe he’s in this
area,” McVeigh said.

|F THE man caught the import of the
statement he did not show it. “That
so?” he said. “Well, now.”

“Maybe you know something that
could help us,” McVeigh said more
oointedly. ‘“‘The man we’re looking for
is probably slight, short and of Mexi-
can descent. We have reason to think
he left his home to go to Mexico on two
occasions, once in June, and once in
December.”

The stout man arched his scraggly
eyebrows. “No,” he said. “Now is that
a fact? Well.”

“This killer dissected two women,”
continued McVeigh impatiently. “That
means there must have been blood-
stains someplace. Could it be that
you’ve noted such stains or seen a man
burning a woman's clothes?”

“Nope,” replied the man thought-
fully. ‘“Can’t say that I have.”

McVeigh was angry. “Quit stalling!
We've just come from a woman who
says you have information on the
crimes.”

George shook his head. “Nope,” he
said. ‘‘Leastwise no direct information.
But a feller like me hears a lot. He
goes in people’s houses and mends their
busted stuff.and polishes floors and
washes their cars and pretty soon they
get so used to him they talk just like he
wasn’t around. Mostly, of course, I
hear ladies. They jabber the most any-
way.”

“You heard a woman say she knew
who the slayer was?”

“Nope, I heard a woman say another
lady did.- Or thought she did.”

Cox said, “There might be a jail
sentence for obstructing justice it you
don’t spill what you know.”

George gulped and a little tremor
shook his frame. He liked his house-
boat and he liked working for people.
The one thing he didn’t want was
trouble.

; ty told what he knew, and told it
ast.

He Tried to Steal Another's

“He wasn’t smart enough to leave
them in the till,” Fitzgibbons retorted
crisply. ‘But let’s assume he is that
smart. I’m pretty sure he’ll try to
change the dimes and quarters and
halves into bills. And it seems to me
that banks and saloons are the most
likely places for him to try. So we'll
notify all the banks and all the saloons
within a radius of a mile or so. Better
get busy on it.”

Results were almost immediate.: An
hour afterward, a man walked up to
the teller’s window of a bank about
three blocks from Headquarters, placed
sixteen. dollars in small change on the
Fad and asked to have it converted into

Ss.

The teller scribbled a note to the man
in the next cage and passed it through
the wire. Then he stalled around for a
few minutes until two men came
through the door and closed in around
the customer.

They whisked him back to Headquar-
ters and into the Chief’s office.

“Where did you get all that money?” |
Fitzgibbons demanded.

“It’s mine,” the man, an obvious
vagrant, replied.

The woman’s name was Mrs. Ira T.
Anderson and she lived a block off Fol-
som Boulevard near the railroad cross-
ing in Brighton.

Cox and his men rushed to the

woman's home and put their question-

to her bluntly.

“Yes, I think I do “know the killer,”
Mrs. Anderson told them. “I would
have spoken up sooner but you see, I
don’t read the newspapers regularly
and I only happened to hear of the
second killing recently. Then, too, I
was afraid my suspicions might be
false and I would be harming an inno-
cent man.”

“Who is this man?” -

“Victoriano Corrales,” Mrs. Ander-
son allegedly replied. “I saw him take
two women into his shack behind my
place at different times, but I never saw
the women come out again.”

Additional questioning of Mrs.
Anderson assured the men they were at
last, on the right track. Rather than
chance a mistake, however, they set
about gathering further evidence.

Working late into the night and all of
the next morning, their efforts re-
putedly brought the following results:

A neighborhood boy, Harold D.
McQuillan, eleven, was located. Harold
said that he and several other boys had
seen Corrales arrive at his shack in a
taxicab on December 14. A woman was
with him.

_S*T HEY went inside. Then they

argued. Me and my friends, we
listened for awhile but they were shout-
ing in a foreign-like language and we
run away,” the boy concluded. “We
was awful scairt.”

This tip led the police to the Union
Taxi Company. There, after hours of
interrogation and hunting through the
firm’s records, the officers found two
drivers who were able to give them
some help.

Al Grob declared that he had taken
Corrales and a girl to Brighton on the
evening of December 14. “They were
quarreling,” Grob claimed.

Russell Moore told of _ picking
Corrales up in Brighton early on the
morning of December 15. ‘He was
covered up to the knees with mud,” said
the driver.

While Corrales, a pipe-firm employe,
was at work a search was made-of his
shack. A knife and an ax, which Sheriff
Cox said he thought were the dissection
implements, were found.

Late in the afternoon of January 17,
mild-featured, stoop-shouldered Vic-
toriano Corrales was placed under
arrest. At first the five-foot four-inch,
125-pound laborer denied everything,
and the task of breaking him down
seemed hopeless.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t. I asked you
where you got it.”

“People give it to me.”

“What people?”

“People I ask for it.”

Pata mean you panhandled it?”

“Yes.”

“Where'd you get that scratch?” the
Chief demanded suddenly.

Plainly the question startled the
vagrant. “What scratch?”

“On the back of your hand. You
know what scratch I’m talking about.”

“Oh—that. Why—uh, I was—uh,
playing with a cat and it scratched me.”

“When?”

.“‘Two or three days ago.”

*6\VOU'RE lying,” Fitzgibbons de-

clared flatly. “That scratch is new.
It’s just about stopped bleeding. Where
did you spend the morning from nine
o’clock on?”

“I was in a flop-house until half-past
ten. Then I had a couple of drinks and
went to the bank to get that money
changed.”

‘The obviously nervous panhandler
gave the name of the cheap hotel where
he had spent the night and part of the

nk AR wit tn ne gn

On the morning of January 18, how-
ever, the following dialogue between
Knoll and Corrales took place, police
announced,

“How did you sleep?” asked Knoll,

“Oh, so-so."

“What did you do with that girl?”

“T have no girl.”

“Look here, Corrales, I’m going to
bring in a cab driver who will tell you to
your face you brought a girl to your
shack on the night of December
fourteenth.”

Corrales shrugged. “I kill her,”
officials quoted him as saying.

According to official statements, Cor-
rales in a series of later questionings
disclosed the following details about the
second torso death. Present at these
grillings were Cox, Knoll, McVeigh,
Chief Deputy District Attorney A. H.
Mundt and Assistant Mexican Consul
Antonio Gaitan.

The torso victim was-Maria de Jesus
Pulido. Corrales had met this, lovely,
twenty-year-old entertainer ih his
home town of Irapuato, Mexico. Early
in December he succeeded in smuggling
her across the border near Calexico,
California.

After a brief stay in Sacramento the
pair went to Corrales’ shack. They
argued and the woman announced her
intention of departing. Corrales then
hit her over the head with a hammer,
the officials declared he admitted.

While she lay’ on the floor uncon-
scious, though perhaps still alive, Cor-
rales dismembered her body, the official
statement declared he admitted: Un-
der the cover of darkness he carried
the torso to the river in a burlap sack.
Later he carried the head and legs to
the stream in another sack.

ab oy THE afternoon of January 18
Corrales led the detectives to the
spot where he allegedly had dropped the
woman into the American River, about
one eighth of a mile from his shack.
The stream was dragged at this loca-
tion and the woman’s head and one
of her legs were brought to the surface.
A brown ribbon was tied to the hair
and there was a silk stocking on the leg.

A section of the flooring in Corrales’
cabin was torn up and bloodstains were
found on the underside of some of the
boards.

Deputy Munizich, in searching the
shack, also found an electric socket with

a short length of wire still attached to .

it. The severed end of this wire
matched exactly, officials declared, the
end of the wire which had been used
to tie the blanket around the torso
found in Steamboat Slough—the first
one.

Corrales first was asked if he had

been friendly with another woman be-
fore he smuggled Maria Pulido across
the border,

“Yes, Alberta Gomez. I bring her
from Trapuato, too,” he allegedly re-
plied.

At first, however, he disclaimed any
knowledge of her death.

“She go,” he said. “Leave me. I
don’t know where she is.”

When confronted with the matching
wires, however, he confessed he had
slain Alberta Gomez in the same man-
ner he had killed Maria Pulido, police
claimed. The motive apparently also
was the same, for Alberta Gomez had
announced her intention of leaving him.

“And just when she was supposed to
fix my dinner,” Corrales allegedly said
pettishly.

A further check into Corrales’ history
showed that he had a 28-year-old wife,
Angelina, and six children. .

“What happened to your children?”
asked McVeigh. “To your wife?”

Nonchalantly Corrales replied, “An-
gelina, she go.”

This simple answer threw the Sher-
iff’s and District Attorney’s offices into
an uproar. “She go” were the same
words Corrales had used when first
asked about Maria Pulido and Alberta
Gomez.

An intense two-day search was made
for the young wife and her children.
On January 21 Angelina Corrales and
five of her offspring were found living
in a tent near Fresno, California. The
sixth and oldest child, a daughter, was
located in Woodland.

“I was glad to get away. I might
have been one of those torso victims,”
said Mrs. Corrales. She added that she
had left her husband early in 1946 be-
cause he frequently beat her and once
had made a threat against the entire
family.

HE police also learned that Mrs. Cor-
rales had been working as a farm-
hand since leaving Victoriano and that
she had managed to keep her children
in school.

On January 25, 1949, Chief Deputy
District Attorney Mundt filed two
formal charges of murder against Cor-
rales for the slaying of Maria Pulido
and Alberta Gomez. March 16 he was
found guilty on one of these counts
and on Monday, March 21, he was
sentenced to death in the gas chamber:.,

Meanwhile Isobel Bryan, once
thought to be the second torso victim,
has returned home and is alive and well.

In this story the names Nancy
Aramis, Joan Stoesser, Elaine Smyth,
Rita Crawford, Isobel Bryan and George
are fictitious to protect persons not
connected with the twin slayings.

S Ooo d L uc k (Continued from Page 33)

morning. Notwithstanding his lie
about the scratch, Fitzgibbons doubted
that he had been involved in the slay-
ing. He knew the tendency of such
men to lie instinctively about anything
they think is incriminating, even when
they have no idea why they have been
arrested. ~-

This proved to be the case. The
proprietor of the flop-house and the
bartender in a saloon verified the man’s
story. He was released.

During the day two saloons and one
other bank reported men changing con-
siderable amounts of silver into bills.
The results in all instances were as
fruitless as in the case of the vagrant,
the men being easily able to prove where
they got the money.

Night was approaching. Hours of
intense effort by two-score detectives
and plainclothesmen had failed to lift
the fog which surrounded the case.
The knife had not been found. No
customer who had been in the Chisholm
store had come forward to tell what he
knew, in spite of the Chief’s statement
in the newspapers urging them to do
so. Two suspicious characters who had
been reported near the scene of the

crime were picked up and almost as
quickly released as innocent. The
watch kept on the railroad station
and on bus lines had yielded nothing,
and it was too early to expect anything
from the five-state alarm even if the
killer had left town.

This was the situation when the,
proprietor of a Tonawanda Street
hardware store phoned Captain Ed-
ward F, Barrett at the Austin Station.

“It just occurred to me that I might
have some information connected with
that Chisholm case,” he reported.

“Hold it; I'll be right over,” the Cap-
tain answered.

“It was on Friday night,” the owner
told Barrett on his arrival at the store.
“Last night; before the killing. A
young fellow came in just as I was
about to close. He asked for a hunting
knife and picked one out. I noticed
that his hand was shaking. He kept
looking toward the door as though he
was afraid of someone coming in. It
made me a little nervous; I thought
maybe he was planning a stickup. But
en selected one, paid for it and

“What did he look like?”

53


~

A further search of the trunk ree
vealed a score of expensive fur coats,
three loaded guns and a complete set
of burglar's tools, The officers also
found a neatly piled stack of books in
a corner of the trunk,

Chief Anderson picked up one, It
was a copy of the Social Register. He
thumbed through it. Several of the
names listed were underscored with
blue pencil, some of these the names of
persons who had been victims of the
jewel thief.

Scrapbooks contained clippings from
society sections of the daily papers.
The clippings were pasted in the book
according to date and names and ad-
dresses were underlined. Most of the
clippings were announcements of big
socials and usually’ gave the list of
guests to be present and what the ladies
would wear.

T= Chief examined the other books.
One was a black leather loose-leaf_
book with an address index. The Chief
called to his two aides, “Take a look at
this.”
He pointed to the names listed in the
book and read off a few. ;
“Louis B. Mayer, B. G.—Buddy—
DeSylva, Jay Gould HI, Lady Thelma
Furness, Bette Davis, William Powell,
Harold Lloyd, Mary Pickford, Henry J.
Kaiser, Junior, Mrs. William Wrigley—
and that’s only the beginning.”
The Chief noticed that after each

Sacramento's Twin Torso Slayings

Always they received the same an-
swer: “No, we don't handle that type
bracelet, and I have no idea who does.”

At one store they visited, the detec-
tives were greeted by a willowy sales-
girl in a peek-a-boo blouse and smoke-
colored nylons. The girl wanted to be
helpful but she had been struggling all
week with holiday shoppers and her
nerves were on edge.

“Look!” she cried. “Why don’t you
take your questions someplace else?
For all I know that bracelet might
have been manufactured in Japan,
Ask General MacArthur. Ask Lieu-
tenant Dan Britt. But for the love of
Pete, stop asking me!”

Outside, Cox and Knoll conferred
briefly, decided to meet at the office
early the next morning, then parted.

Cox walked down the street toward
where his car was parked. Although it
was evening and already dark, the
stores were still lighted and bright-col-
ored electric bulbs decorated many of
the facades. Men and women bustled
past the Sheriff, their faces pinched
with the cold and their arms loaded
with bundles. Everywhere the predom-
inant mood was one of festivity and
gaiety.

This was Christmas week.

Yes, thought Cox, it was a week of
rejoicing and gladness. It was the time
to forget, if you could, that while
warmth and happiness spread through
homes all over the nation, the butch-
ered torso of what once had been a
living woman was lying shrouded in the
dim, unremitting and icy silence of the
county morgue. ‘

For most people Christmas morning
meant a family reunion, the opening of
gifts, preparing for the big dinner that
would come later in the day.

For Sheriff Cox it meant confronting
an anxiety-stricken Oakland mother
and father who thought the second
river victim might be their daughter.
Neither of the missing girl’s Parents
could be sure, however, that the mesh
bracelet belonged to their offspring.

Cox said hesitantly, “Do you think

could recognize the body if you saw ‘
t?”

Both parents were positive they
could make an identification if this
were their daughter. “She had a pe-
culiar, star-shaped vaccination on her
right bicep,” the mother explained.

Taken to the morgue where they

50

name was listed not only the person's
address and telephone number—most

of them private numbers—but also’

notes about his private life.

The book contained notes about per-
sonal habits, nd of home, number of
servants and what night they had off
during the week, number of children,
dogs, if any, and sometimes a diagram
of the house,

. “This boy didn’t miss a trick,” Lieu-
tenant Alcorn declared.

“Just one,” said Anderson, “Getting
rid of his loot.”

The scrapbook with its clippings, the
Social Register with its underscored
names and the loose-leaf address book
with its many notes told the Story of
this daring thief. ;

From the register he would select
his victims. The newspaper clippings
informed him what social function he
might crash to case his next victim in
"person and maybe find out something
about how much the job might be worth
and whether it ,would be worth com-
mitting at all.

From unsuspecting guests he would
get additional information about their
personal lives. Tall, good-looking,
smooth and glib, he soon visited the
scene of his next crime and under the
guidance of the very person he was
going to rob, learned all of the secrets
of the household. -

He was polished, so charming, so
attentive to the ladies, who would sus-
pect him? ’

viewed the remains, the parents
Promptly declared the victim was un-
known to them. The arms were devoid
of any distinguishing marks or scars
whatsoever. ,

By this time an exhaustive autopsy
had been performed on the body, and
Coroner Boone had finished filling out
his report. According to this report the
body had been in the water approxi-
mately a week before it was discovered.
Although the cause of death was not
definitely known, Boone believed it
might have been the result of decapi-
tation.

More important, a painstaking study
of the physical characteristics of the
torso had made it possible to construct a
partial picture of what the victim must
have looked like in life.

SHE had been young—between nine-
teen and 22 years old—with an
olive complexion and hair as dark and
lustrous as a raven’s wing. Although
slender she’d had an attractive and
well-developed figure. Her torso was
totally without blemishes, indicating a
clear and healthy skin. Generally
speaking, she could be classified as a
Latin type.

Specifically, her measurements were
as follows: .

Five feet two or three inches tall
with a weight of approximately 110
pounds, a 34-inch bust, 23-inch torso,
and 32-inch hips; the arms were 221%
inches long and the waist span was 28
inches; the hands were small with the
left hand containing the single pecu-
liarity of the whole torso, a hammer
thumb.

The dismembering had been per-
formed crudely and was very similar to
that of the June victim. Because of
this Boone was inclined to agree with
the Sheriff's theory that both women
had been slain by the same person. : In
each instance the bone in the neck and
legs had been severed with a sharp,
heavy instrument, probably an ax. The
flesh, on the other hand, had been cut
very unevenly, thus signifying the use
of a very different implement.

“Something with a jagged edge per-
haps,” reflected Cox. “Maybe a saw.”

“Maybe, but I doubt it,” replied.

Boone. It was-the Coroner's opinion
that if a saw had been used the epi-
dermis, or surface layer of skin, would
have borne notch-like marks from the
saw’s teeth. Such marks, however,

“When he left for the east last Mon-
day,” the girl said, “Jerry gave me two
hundred dollars and told me that he
would call me and let me know where
I could reach him later,”

Because she was in possession of a
stolen coat, the girl, Betty Richie, was

ked on a charge of receiving
stolen property at the Beverly Hills jail.
Immigration authorities learned that
she had entered the United States on a
six-month visa and announced that de-
portation proceedings would be insti-
tuted upon her release from jail.

NEWS of the arrest of Jerry McKay,

or Dennis, as was his true name,
brought to Beverly Hills Police Station
scores of victims of the modern Raffles,
among them Loretta Young, Mrs.
Matthiessen and Mrs. Winans, all of
whom identified jewelry and furs stolen
from them, ‘ -

Dennis, in the-meantimé, was taken
from Cleveland to White Plains, New
York, after extradition. Fhere, 100
detectives from all over the, country
gathered to talk to him, all wanting to
clear up jewelry burglaries in their
community. . «

Captain Jones went east from Los
Angeles to talk to Dennis and, he said,
the gdod-looking Raffles readily ad-

mitted his crimes on the West Coast.

District Attorney George M. Fanelli
of Westchester County, New York, in
charge of Dennis’ prosecution for his
eastern crimes, announced that on

(Continued from Page 9)

were ‘lacking. “No, I’d say the killer
used a knife, and no dull one at that.”

So far as Cox could see, the Coroner
was going around in circles. First: he
asserted that the dismembering had
been clumsy, then he contradicted
himself by claiming a keen-edge in-
strument had been used.

The Sheriff was about to remark on
this when he saw how the contradic-
tion could be apparent rather than real.

“Look,” he asked, “are you trying to
tell me that the killer failed to perform
the amputations neatly because he was
in a terrific hurry?”

Boone shook his head. It was hardly
likely, he pointed out, that any person
sufficiently cold-blooded to commit
two such gruesome slayings should
worry unduly about the time element.

“The inference is simple. The killer
had a tough time dissecting the bodies
because he was only of moderate
strength,” the Coroner continued. “My
guess—and it’s only a shot in the dark
—is that the slayer is fairly short and
has a slight build.”

The more Cox chewed over the idea,
the better he liked it. “I think you've
hit on something,” he told Boone.
“Something that explains why the kill-
er hacked up the women in the first
place.” ;

The Coroner was puzzled. “Excuse
me if I seem obtuse,” he said, “but—”

“Like most killers, our man was
faced with the problem of disposing of
the bodies,” Cox interrupted. “Appar-
ently he decided on the river. But de-
ciding was one thing and getting the
bodies to the water was another. The
dead women were unwieldy, the Slayer
wasn’t strong and Probably he had a
considerable distance to travel. So he
dissected the women, then carried them
to the river piecemeal.”

“Which would mean that he didn't
have an automobile.”

“Exactly,” said Cox. “It also means
that the killer doesn’t live directly on
the bank of the river. If he did, he
wouldn’t have had to chop up the
bodies. Yep he must live within a mile
or he wouldn’t have hit on the notion
of dumping the bodies there.”

Boone smiled wryly. All this theoriz-
ing was fine, but he couldn't refrain
from pointing out that it was based on
a long string of unproved assumptions.
“We're not absolutely certain that the
same man killed both women. We're
not sure that both bodies were dumped

“could be & woman.”

March 10, 1949, the suave alleged thief
was indicted for larceny, burglary and
Annault, All told, 27 counta were con«
tained in ‘the = indictment brought
against him in Westchester County
alone, with a possible maximum penalty
of 385 years’ imprisonment.

As this issue of OFFICIAL DETEC-
TIVE STORIES goes to press, further
legal action is pending.

Latest news is that Sonja Henie has
identified fur coats found at Dennis’
Beverly Hills home as those worth
$28,000 taken from her hotel room
in New York.

After talking to New York authori-
ties, Chief Anderson declared that
Dennis told officers he seldom pulled a
job without first completing a plan
book on a victim—that is, a layout of

the home, whether there were dogs and.

when the persons of the household
would be away from home, -

He also said, according to Chief An-
derson, that he often left a party and
changed from tuxedo to old clothes—
he wore crepe soles on his shoes, a khaki
Overseas cap, gloves, a dark corduroy
jacket and a tan raincoat.

Dennis was always very careful never
to leave finger-prints or foot-prints
and was very meticulous about replac-
ing things, Anderson said. The Chief
also said that often victims didn’t know
they had been robbed for weeks.

The name Mrs. Justin Goodman in
this story is fictitious, :

Read It First.In
OFFICIAL DETECTIVE STORIES

into the American River. And finally,
we're not positive that the slayer is a
man at all.”
Cox looked blank. “Say that again.”
“The killer,” sa Boone softly,

That, of course, was a Possibility,
But it was only one of a hundred Pos-
sibilities that Cox kept batting around
in his mind until his head ached.

Then, late in the afternoon, Deputy
George Munizich burst into Cox’ office
waving a missing-persons’ report. This
report, which just had been filed, stated
that Nancy Aramis, a 20-year-old
Orangeville waitress, had vanished at
approximately the time the second tor-
so slaying had taken place.

According to the gir]’s mother, Nan-
cy was a slender and extremely attrac-
tive brunet. Because this description
tallied with that of the latest victim,
Cox and Munizich rushed to the moth-
er’s home at Fair Oaks to investigate
further.

“The last I heard from Nancy was
on December thirteenth when I gota
letter from her postmarked Oakland,”
the worried mother told the officers.
“I've written her since then in care of

general delivery, but she hasn't replied. -

I don’t know what to think. She's al-
ways kept in touch with me before.”

Additional questioning of the mother
revealed that Nancy’s weight, height
and body measurements were almost
identical to those of the victim. More-
over, the missing waitress had owned
considerable costume jewelry and it
was entirely possible that the mesh
bracelet was hers.

“pour Nancy never was in trouble and

she never kept bad company,” said .
. the mother. “It’s hard for me to be-

lieve that anyone would kill her.”

“Perhaps no one did,” said Cox. “Did
your daughter have a hammer thumb
on her left hand?” .

“She did not,” replied the mother
with finality.

Nevertheless, the resemblance be-
tween the Aramis girl and the torso
victim was so close that it required fur-

ther checking. Toward this end the - |

Sheriff released a story to the local
Papers in which he declared that the
waitress might be the second victim.
Several hours later a salesgirl in:a
Sacramento dress shop telephoned Cox.
“I seen Nancy Aramis walking down


The Axe-Man Cometh

(continued from page 15) :

brought another, younger girl, to his

- cabin at one other time. They were mis-

taken about that, he insisted.

They finally let him get some sleep.

For Knoll and McVeigh, there was
little sleep that night, but when the ques-
tioning was resumed the next morning
they were primed and ready. They had
interviewed Corrales’ employer and fel-
low workmen, and had traced him to a
hotel in Sacramento where he had spent a
week with'a young woman. They had
located a taxicab driver who had taken
him and the girl to his cabin in Brighton,
and another cab driver who had picked up
the suspect at a beer parlor in Sacramento
the next evening and who remembered
that the legs of the trousers were covered
with dried mud up to the knees. They had
also questioned Mrs. Anderson again and
talked with little Harold McQuillan and
his playmates.

Knoll began the interrogation by
asking the suspect how he had spent the
night.

**Oh, so-so,’” he replied, with a shrug.

Maria Pulido was smuggled into
€i,° the U.S. by her slayer.
56

‘*Are you ready to tell us what you did
with that girl you took to your cabin on
the night of December 14th?’’ Knoll de-
manded. *‘We know the date now, be-
cause the taxicab company has a record
of the trip.”’

‘*T have no girl,’’ Corrales answered.

‘*Now, look here, Corrales,’’ Knoll
said sharply. ‘‘I am going to bring that
cab driver in here, and he will tell you to
your face that he took you and a girl to
your shack on that night.”’

Corrales’ glance fell beneath Knoll’s
penetrating gaze. He studied his hands
for a moment, then spoke. *‘] kil her,”’
he said.

With the aid of an interpreter sent by

the local Mexican consul, a statement

was obtained from the slayer.

The girl’s name was Maria Pulido, he
revealed, and she was about 20. He had
met her in Mexico, where he had gone in
November. She was very pretty, and he

begged her to accompany him back to the,

United States. He knew she was poor and
friendless, and he painted a glowing pic-
ture of the life of luxury that would be
hers in the country north of the border.

She agreed to go with him, and he
smuggled her into California at night.
They climbed over the fence at an un-
guarded section of the border. He
brought her to Sacramento, and for a few
days they lived together in a hotel room.
Then he took her in the taxicab to his
cabin.

When the girl saw the wretched shack
he called his home, she was furious.

‘*You lied to me!’” she cried. *‘I will
not live here. Why this hoyel is worse
than anything I ever lived in in Mexico. It
is as old and ugly as you are!”’

Angered by the taunt, he dragged her
inside and prevented her from leaving.
Their bitter quarrel reached a climax
when she asserted that she was through
with him and was going to a younger
man.

Corrales said he grabbed a hammer
and struck her twice on the head. °

A short time later, without trying to
determine whether or not she was dead,
he began cutting up the body, using the
knife and the ax Knoll and McVeigh had
found. He did it, he said, to make it easier
for him to transport the remains, which
he carried to the river in a burlap sack. He
made two trips, disposing of the torso
first and then the head and legs.

Having made this confession, Cor-
rales remained cooperative. He led the
officers to the place where he had thrown
the body into the water, and they im-

mediately. began dragging the river in
that area. A few hours later, the head of
the murdered girl was recovered, not far
from where he said he had thrown it into
the stream.

Seeking additional evidence in sup-
port of the slayer’s confession, Knoll had
the ax and knife examined, but tests re-
vealed no trace of blood on either. Then
part of the cabin floor was taken up, and
traces of human blood were found be-

‘tween the cracks.

Meanwhile, Corrales continud to deny
any knowledge of the previous torso
murder, and the officers began to wonder
whether it actually was a separate case.
_ Then Knoll and Deputy Munizich
made another search of the cabin, and the
latter discovered two short pieces of elec-
tric cord attached to a light socket. The
same type of wire had been used to truss
up the blanket-wrapped torso discovered
in Steamboat Slough, and a comparison
soon proved that it had been cut from the
length of wire found in the cabin.

When Deputy District Attorney
Mundt showed the suspect the wire and
pointed out that the ends of both pieces
matched, he scratched his head and
smiled ruefully.

‘*] kill Alberta, too,’” he admitted.

Alberta Gomez had been 28 and a na-
tive of Irapuato, Mexico, where Corrales
was born. He met her there during a trip
in search of an attractive mate. She could!
not resist the lure of the kind of life he
said awaited her in the fabulous United
States, and he smuggled her across the
border and brought her to his first shack
in Brighton.

Bitterly disillusioned, she threatened

(continued on page 58)

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efforts were discontinued.

Since the body might have been in the
water anywhere from a few days to two
wecks or even longer, the officers again
faced the possibility that it had been car-

_ ried many miles downstream. Thus, they

could not assume that the murder scene
was near Sacramento; it might be located
in a totally unsuspected area, perhaps in
one of the neighboring counties. Presum-
ably, however, both of the bodies had
been dumped into the water somewhere
on the American River, the one found in
Steamboat Slough drifting no less than
25 or 30 miles, from one.end of the coun-
ty to the other.

Lacking other clues, McVeigh con-
centrated his efforts on trying to identify
the victim through her bracelet. It was a
costume piece, and he thought it was

sufficiently unusual to offer promise. In.
the center of the gold band was a raised

design with a setting of 32 green and
white stones, three of which were mis-
sing.

When the local jewelry establishments
were canvassed, it developed that the
bracelet, while not expensive, was more
unusual than McVeigh had expected.
None of the dealers could find it listed in
any wholesaler’s catalogue, and all were
sure they had never sold a bracelet of that
particular type.

McVeigh was advised to get in touch
with a certain NewYork firm, which
might be the distributor that had supplied
the bracelet.

While waiting for a reply from New
York, McVeigh gave the newspapers as
complete a description of the victim as
could be furnished, based on a scientific
reconstruction of the dismembered body.

The girl was described as a slender
brunette with black hair. Her age had
been estimated at 22 or 23, but later cal-
culations made it appear that she was
between 18 and 20 years old. Her height
was about five feet, four or five inches,
hear waist, 27: her hips 32%. She had

weighed around 115 or 120 pounds. She °

had small hands, a vaccination scar on
her right arm and a hammer thumb on her

left hand.

This information brought no im-
mediate response from the Sacramento
public. But on January Sth, the police of
suburban Albany, on the coast near Oak-
land, reported that the description was
almost identical to that of a missing
Albany girl.

Police Inspector Arthur Smith told Un-
dersheriff Knoll over the telephone that
he had become interested when he
learned that the torso murder victim had a
left hammer thumb. So had the Albany
girl, he said. She also had a vaccination
mark on her right arm.

14

The missing girl was Sally Ellis, an
extremely pretty brunette of 19. She had
gone Out on a date with an Oakland man
on the evening of October 3rd, and her
foster-parents had not seen her since.
They were inclined to suspect that she
had eloped with her escort, and they
waited several days for her to get in touch
with them. Then, when there was no
word from her, they called the police.

_ Smith and the other officers working

. on the case were handicapped by the fact

that Sally had not told her foster-parénts
her boyfriend’s name. They only knew
that he was considerably older than she,
and that he worked as a car painter in
Oakland.

It was several weeks before Smith lo-
cated the man, Rex Brennan. He admit-
ted that he had taken Sally out on October
3rd, but said he had brought her home at
two-thirty the next morning and left her
in front of the family apartment, He de-
nied that he had seen her after that or that
he had any idea where she was.

Brennan had a good reputation, but
Smith was not satisfied with his story that
he had left on his vacation the same
morning he escorted the girl home. He
claimed to have gone to Utah, where he
spent the next two weeks in Ogden and
Salt Lake City.

An investigation soon disclosed that
Brennan actually had gone to Ogden,
however, and he was tentatively cleared
of suspicion.

Two months passed, and then the mis-
sing girl’s foster-mother began to receive
long-distance telephone calls from a
woman who asked for Sally and then
hung up without giving her name. Each
of the calls was made from Salt Lake
City, in Utah.

Then, shortly before Christmas, Bren-
nan again went to Salt Lake City on vaca-
tion. When he returned, early in January,
Smith brought him in for questioning.

Brennan broke down and admitted that

.he had been seeing Sally in Salt Lake
- City. When he went there the first time,

he said, she ‘‘followed’’ him and by
some coincidence obtained a room in the
same hotel where he was staying.

She made him promise not to tell any-
one where she was, he declared,and that
was why he had been concealing the
truth. When he last saw her, he said, in
December, she was working in a nursing
home near Ogden.

Smith asked the Ogden and Salt Lake
City police to try to find some trace of the
girl, but thus far they had had no success.

After further communication between
the Albany police and the Sacramento
officers, arrangements were made for In-
spector Smith to bring Brennan to Sac-
ramento to view the remains of the mur-

der victim.
A court order was obtained, and the
headless, legless body was exhumed.
The result was inconclusive. Brennan
gazed at the body with seeming earnest-
ness before shaking his head in the nega-

- tive.

‘*It may be Sally,’’ he said. ‘‘I just
can’t say whether it is or not.”’

Aided by Sergeant Robert Turley.
Smith searched the missing girl’s home
for latent prints on objects she was
known to have handled. They finally

_ found her prints on a bottle, three dinner

plates and two phonograph records.

In the meantime, the New York jewel-
ry firm had replied to McVeigh’s in-
quiry,and another lead ended in dis-
appointment. The bracelet was not one of

_ those handled by this company, and there

appeared to be little likelihood that it had
been manufactured in the East.

Knoll and McVeigh again found them-
selves facing a blank wall. It was bitter to
realize that the prospects of their solving
the case were beginning to look no better
than in the first torso murder, which had
seemed almost hopeless from the start.

Not only was the murdered girl’s
identity still shrouded in mystery, but the
slayer’s motive was equally obscure.
Even the approximate date of the murder
could only be guessed at.

Sheriff Cox made one more appeal to
the public for information, and this was
published in the newspapers on January
16th. Neither he nor his deputies re-
garded this effort as anything more than a
forlorn hope, but it resulted in an an-
onymous tip that was received the
following day.

A woman who refused to give her
name telephoned to report that a friend of
hers had information about a neighbor
whose actions were cause for suspicion.

‘*Around the middle of last month,”’
she said hurriedly, *‘this man, who lives
in Brighton, about a mile from the Amer-
ican River, brought a young woman to
his cabin. Nobody saw the girl leave
there, but a couple of days later my
friend saw him burn a mattress in his
back yard.’’

Her friend’s name was Mrs. Ira T.
Anderson, she said, and furnished her
address. Still refusing to reveal her own
identity, she hung up while the deputy
who received the call was trying to ques-
tion her.

Knoll and McVeigh immediately

drove to Brighton, a suburban communi-

ty near the eastern outskirts. of Sac-
ramento, where they readily located Mrs.
Anderson’s home. She was a pleasant-
faced, motherly type of woman, who
operated a foster home for children while
caring for her invalid husband, who was

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The Axe-Man Cometh

(continued from page 56)

to leave him, but she had no money and
he persuaded her to remain. They moved
into the cabin near Mrs. Anderson’s
home, and there she began going out and
making friends, and he suspected that she
was looking for a younger man who
would rescue her from her plight, as she
had hinted she would do.

A few days later, around June 12th, he

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came home and found that she had not
prepared his supper. He demanded an
explanation, and she replied that she had
spent the day in town and just got back.
During ‘the argument that followed, she
declared that she was under no obligation

- to have his meals ready for him, and she

began getting her things together, pre-
pared to walk out on him.

‘*T hit her with the hammer and break
the handle,’’ he said. ‘*Then I cut her up
and carry the pieces to the river.”’

Five months later, he returned to Ira-
puato and induced Maria Pulido to live
with him, as he had previously related.
He used the same hammer to murder her,

and it was because the handle was crack-.

ed from bludgeoning his first victim that
he wasn’t sure the two blows killed her.

An examination of Miss Pulido’s head
had already led the autopsy surgeon to
express the opinion that she had not died
from the hammer blows but from the
decapitation.

The Mexican authorities were con-
tacted, and they found witnesses who had
seen both of the victims with the killer at

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the times he had mentioned. They for-
warded a snapshot of Miss Pulido.

During the questioning, Corrales re-
vealed that he had a wife and six chil-
dren, whose whereabouts he didn’t
know. He said his wife had left him sud-
denly, several years previously, while
they were living in another county.

It was feared that he had murdered this

‘woman, too, but several days later the

search for her turned up his eldest daugh-
ter at Woodland, north of Sacramento,
where the 14-year-old child was working
to help support her family.

The mother and her other five children
were then located 100 miles south of

there, near Fresno.

She told authorities she was not sur-
prised to learn that her husband had mur-
dered two women, and revealed that she
had fled from him in fear for her life.

At first they had been happy together,
she said, but he began to change after
their first child was born. He became
more and more brutal, beating her and
mistreating the children. He often
threatened to kill her, and once chased
her with a knife. That time, she declared,
only luck and the intervention of the chil-
dren saved her;,he trippedand fell down,
and the children held him while she got
away.

The authorities traced Corrales’ back-
ground and concluded that he had not
murdered anyone else. He was mean-
while charged with the murders of Alber-
ta Gomez and Maria Pulido, and entered
pleas of not guilty and not guilty by
reason of insanity to both counts.

An examination by three eminent
psychiatrists showed the slayer to be
sane, and his insanity plea was then with-
drawn.

While the trial was pending, Sally

Ellis returned to her home in Albany. *

Surprised to learn of the search that had
been made for her, she said she had

(continued on next page)

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confined to bed.

A little upset to find herself involved in
a murder investigation, she admitted that
she had told several of her friends about
her neighbor, Vic Corrales, and the mat-
tress he had burned.

‘But I don’t really suspect him of
those terrible murders,’’ she said, ‘‘and I
wish | knew which one of my friends
telephoned you.’’

It developed, however, that her suspi-

. cions of her neighbor were somewhat
_ Stronger than she cared to admit. But she

feared possible reprisals. Should he be
tried but not convicted, then not only her
own safety but that of her husband and
the children might be endangered.

Knoll quickly reassured her on this
score, promising that her identity would
be protected as long as there was any risk
involved. She felt better then, and talked
freely.

The man’s name was Victorlano Cor- .

rales. He lived in a shack near by, having
previously occupied a similar cabin near
a vegetable garden, where he was then
employed. He now worked as a laborer
for a pipe company. He was a quiet,
mild-mannered little man who spoke
with a foreign accent and said he was
born in Mexico. He had lived in Brighton

a year or more, off and on sometimes
staying in Sacramento. People said he
was steady, hardworking and’ always
paid his debts.

‘*| don’t know him very well,’’ Mrs.
Anderson explained, ‘*but he always im-
pressed me as a nice man.’

Then she went on to tell why he might
not be what he appeared to be. A month
earlier he had brought a girl to his cabin
in a taxicab, early in the evening. The
children heard them arguing and saw
him push her inside. They all were afraid
to go near the shack except | l-year-old
Harold McQuillan, who tiptoed over and
listened to a violent argument in Spanish.

Rejoining his playmates, he excitedly
told them what he had heard. Then he
went back and listened again. To his sur-
prise, there was not a sound to be heard.
He finally left, wondering at the abrupt
cessation of the heated quarrel.

The children told Mrs. Anderson
about the quarrel, and the next day they
commented on the fact that Corrales had
gone to work alone and the girl had not
set foot outside the cabin. But Mrs.
Anderson concluded that she had left
during the night.,

Two days later, she saw some smoke
and observed Corrales burning what
appeared to be a good innerspring mat-
tress in his yard. Then he went to town
and came back home with a-cheap cotton
mattress.

When the newspapers began to carry

‘sing — and that’s no baloney.

headlines about the second torso murder,
Mrs. Anderson was too busy to pay much
attention to the story. She simply never
thought of Corrales in that connection,
although she still wondered sometimes

_ why he had burned that mattress.
One day, however, a group of her

friends gave her a detailed, spine-chilling
account of both murders. They said the
sheriff was asking the public to report
any circumstances that might furnish a
lead, and they pointed out the slayer
might be anyone. That started a train of
thought about Corrales’ wife, whom she
had seen only a few times. She had beena
nice-looking Mexican girl, evidently in
her twenties, though Corrales was
around 50. They had moved into the
cabin after having lived for a time in a
shack down by the river. A few days later
they had both disappeared.

weeks later, Mrs. Anderson asked him
what had become of his wife. He said
they had gone to Arizona together and
that she had left him there.He wasn’t
much of a talker, so Mrs. Anderson told
him she was sorry to hear it, and that was
all that was ever said about the matter. —
But with her suspicions aroused, Mrs.
Anderson asked her friends for more in-
formation about the first torso murder.
They said the body had been discovered .

‘in Steamboat Slough on June 21st. Mrs.

Anderson couldn’t remember exactly
when Corrales and his wife had dis-
appeared, but she thought it was around
the first of June. At any rate, she was sure .
it was some time before the torso was

. found.

An hour later, at the plant where he
worked, the police took Corrales into
custody. -

Questioned by Sheriff Cox and Chief
Deputy District Attorney Alfred H.
Mundt, Corrales calmly denied that he
had ever had a woman living with him or
that he had brought a girl to his cabin. He
readily admitted having burned the mat-
tress, but said it had been soiled by the
children of some friends who had occu-
pied the cabin while he was away. He had
decided to get rid of it and buy anew one,
he asserted.

Knowing that the suspect was lying
when he denied any connection with
either of the women Mrs. Anderson had
seen, Cox and Mundt became convinced
that they had the torso murderer in cus-
tody at last. They hammered at him with
questions, but without much success.
Speaking in clear but abbreviated Eng-
lish, he steadfastly maintained his asser-
tions of innocence.

Knoll and McVeigh, meanwhile, had
gone to his cabin and were searching it.
They found a large, keen-edged butcher
knife on the table and a double-bit ax
leaned against the electric refrigerator,
but there was no discernible trace of _
blood on either.

After failing to discover any women’s
clothing or other clues, they went outside
and found the springs from the mattress
Corrales:had burned.

But that was all. They finally left, tak-
ing the ax and knife with them.

By a late hour that night, Corrales had
contradicted himself many times and was
betraying his inner agitation. He now
admitted that he had had a woman living
with him, but said he had taken her on a
trip on June Ist and that she had walked
out on him in Arizona. 'He said her name

was Alberta Gomez and that she was .

about 28.
But he continued to deny that he had

(continued on page 56)
15


Ce aie j Ve! Sia

Marvin Holland: He brought a
thousand dollars into one gas
station, death into another

of this country is bulky and wieldy

but it is based upon the principle
that any man is innocent until he is
proved guilty.

Purther than that, it goes to extreme
lengths to see that an innocent man has
every possible opportunity to prove his
innocence. He may appeal his convic-
tion through one court after another.
Uf the highest tribunal in the land, the
United States Supreme Court, turns
him down, he may go further and ask
for clemency.

For this reason, long intervals fre-
quently pass between the arrest of a
person for a crime and the execution of
the sentence which. is passed upon him.

OFFICIAL DETECTIVE STORIES
brings its readers the stories of the de-
tective work that is done solving these
crimes—and it publishes these stories
first, while they still are news. Con-
sequently the final verdict of a jury,
the final decision of a court or the ac-
tual prison sentence of a guilty person
often is not determined until long after
the detective work is finished and OF-
FICIAL DETECTIVE STORIES has
published the story.

This department, under the title of
Up to the Minute, is printed from time
to time to give readers these last bits
of news in cases which they have read
in previous issues.

In the tiny town of Mission, British
Columbia, Canada, a schoolgirl named
Laura Grant was killed while she was
on her way home from classes. The
slaying occurred in 1950; the story of
the work done to capture her killer ap-
peared in January, 1951, issue of OFFI-
CIAL DETECTIVE STORIES under
the title, “But Laura Wasn’t Taking
Algebra”.

Months later the youth who had
killed her, Francis Stephen Sykes (he
was only seventeen at the time of the
crime), was sentenced to be hanged on
the gallows at Oakalla Prison Farm.
Execution date was to be September 11,
1951; an appeal moved that date back
to October 11, then another appeal
changed it to December 11.

One week before that final date, the
British Columbia cabinet commuted
the death sentence to life imprison-
ment. Depending upon his conduct
in prison and his progress in rehabili-
tating himself, Sykes may be eligible
for parole in 20 years, when he still will
be a comparatively young man.

Te criminal code in the 48 states

MUCH shorter sentence in another
case, however, probably will have
an entirely opposite effect. Richard L.
Williams, after four years of litigation
and two trials, found out late in 1951
that he must serve a fifteen-year prison)
term for the murder of Thomas Hob-
good in Birmingham, Alabama.
Williams, however, a former attorney

52

is 79 years of age; he will be close to
90 before he is eligible for a parole,
providing he is still alive.

The story of the capture of Williams
appeared in the August, 1950, issue of
OFFICIAL DETECTIVE STO

and was entitled, “Aging Fifty Years

Overnight”.

The gallows at Oakalla Prison Farm
in British Columbia was not kept idle
on December 11, 1951, despite the com-
mutation of sentence for Francis Ste-
phen Sykes.

For on that date, John Michael
Davidoff, a farmer and a member of
the Doukhobor religious sect, was put
to death at 6:07 a. m. Davidoff’s crime
was the murder of his own son, Joseph,
and the investigation into this slaying
appeared in the November, 1951, OFFI-
CIAL DETECTIVE STORIES, under
the title, “After Willie’s Night With
Murder”.

Early in 1950 the United States Gov-
ernment jailed two men and indicted
a third for bringing aliens into the
country illegally. “Smuggling Human
Cargo by Air,” in the October, 1950,
OFFICIAL DETECTIVE STORIES,
told how this ring was smashed and
stated also that the third man, Gre-
gorio Simonovich, was avoiding arrest
by living in Cuba.

For more than a year, Russian-born
Simonovich did not leave his new land.
Then, late in 1951, Immigration author-
ities announced that he had been ar-
rested at an airport north of Miami,
Florida.

Federal spokesmen said he would be
prosecuted under the old indictment;
Simonovich said he had been kidnaped
and flown to Florida by force.

On November 19, 1951, Robert Cassi-
netti pleaded not guilty in a firm voice
when he was charged in a Colorado
Springs, Colorado, court with the mur-
der of Air Force Sergeant Martin Bur-
sey. The very next day, November 20,
Cassinetti hanged himself in his cell
with strips of a blanket. “Through the
Alibi .22”, in the December, 1951, OFFI-
CIAL, told of the investigation into this
slaying.

JURY in Cook County, Illinois,

ruled that the death of Yvonne
Biritz, six, was an accident. Yvonne
had been killed in Cicero when she
struck her head on a rock as she was
being swung through the air by a neigh-
bor lad. “Whee, Cha-Cha—tThe Air-
plane Spin” described this investiga-
tion in the November, 1951, OFFICIAL
DETECTIVE STORIES.

Another jury in Cook County, almost
three years after ten-year-old Roberta
Rinearson was slain, found George Let-
rich, Junior, guilty of that murder. In
Illinois, a jury may set the punishment
for such a major crime and this jury
decided that the fitting punishment for
Lettrich was execution. His attorneys
have filed an appeal.

The November, 1950, issue of OFFI-
CIAL DETECTIVE STORIES carried
the complete story of the search for
Roberta’s slayer, under the title, “Be-

Strange Men, My Child”.

William E. Cook, who killed seven

persons in a crimson cross-country tour
of crime, may yet avoid serving the 300-
year-sentence passed upon him by a

Federal court for kidnaping five of his
murder victims.

He will avoid it by going, instead, to
California’s gas chamber.

Cook was tried first in United States
District Court in Oklahoma City on the
kidnaping charge; he had met the Carl
Mosser family just outside that city,
forced them to drive him into New
Mexico and then back to Joplin, Mis-
souri, where he shot all five members
of the family.

Under the Lindbergh law, he could
have been executed for the kidnaping
alone. Instead, he was given the sen-
tence of 300 years, to be served in Al-
catraz Prison without hope of parole.

However, Cook had slain his two
other murder victims in the state of
California and that state asked for per-
mission to try him again before he was
sent to Alcatraz, At this trial Cook
pleaded insanity; a jury found him sane
and Judge Luray Mouser sentenced him
to death.

“Missouri Massacre”, the story of
Cook’s capture, appeared in the March,
1951, issue of OFFICIAL DETECTIVE

‘ ‘

George Lettrich, Junior, and
police officers: He knew no
mercy and he was shown none

Since that time both Edgil and his
accomplice, Sam Darty, have been found
guilty of second-degree murder in Jas-
per, Alabama, where the slaying oc-
curred back in 1934. Edgil was given
a sentence of 20 years in prison, Darty
ten years.

For embalming 38 persons while they
were alive, thus causing their deaths,
John—Fat—Hardy, of Atlanta, Georgia,
must serve the rest of his life in prison.
Hardy was the moonshiner who manu-
factured illicit whisky by mixing methyl
alcohol with water and selling it. As a
result, 38 persons died, more than 100
were blinded and many more were
made ill.

STORIES.
ma

FOR sixteen years of terror, Mrs. Annie
Edgil lived with her husband, Steve,
knowing that he was guilty of murder;
Mrs. Edgil herself told readers of this
magazine about those years and about
Edgil’s eventual arrest for the murder
of Gus Ivey in the November, 1951,
story, “My Sixteen Years With His
Conscience”

Edgar Werner: He won't forget
his last lesson in criminology

Doctor Herman Jones, toxicdlogist
and criminologist in Atlanta, testified
at Hardy’s trial that the mixture of
methyl alcohol and water turned to
formaldehyde in the human body, thus
“embalming” every one of the 38 to
death.

“38 Dead—100 Blind—For a Fast
Buck”, telling how Atlanta detectives
went all out to capture the moonshiner
before even more died, was in the Jan-
uary, 1952, OFFICIAL.

Edgar—Ted—Werner was a student
of criminology at Fresno State College
in Fresno, California. On December 7,
1951, he had his last lesson in the sub-
ject when he was sentenced to life im-
prisonment for bludgeoning to death his
attractive wife, Hazel, a former WAC.
Under the title “Please Excuse Absence
—I've Been Killed”, the September,
1951, issue of OFFICIAL DETECTIVE
STORIES Magazine told of the discov-
ery of Mrs. Werner's body and of the
futile lengths to which the embryo crim-
inologist went to avoid detection.

A jury in Miles City, Montana, de-
cided to cage Evelyn—Wildcat—Donges
for life, finding her guilty on December
12, 1951, of first-degree murder with a
recommendation of mercy. Tom La-
Fave, the teen-ager who acted as teen-
aged Evelyn’s boy friend while her
teen-aged husband was in the service,
received the same sentence for the same
crime, the murder of John Hoffman, a
Montana cowboy from Iowa. This story
was in the January, 1952, OFFICIAL,
“When Cowboy Meets Wildcat.”

In Rockford, Illinois, a filling-station
operator named Ralph Aurand was shot
and killed by a holdup man. Another
gas-station man, Rease Binger, listened
carefully to the description of the
slayer provided by witnesses. When
Marvin Holland walked into Binger’s
station, Binger called the police.

As a result, Holland, on December
4, 1951, was sentenced to 99 years in
prison and Binger was given & $1,000
reward by the employers of the slain
man. “Buried in Bandages”, was the
title of this story; it was in the Septem-
ber, 1951, OFFICIAL.

COOK,

William E., white, @aphyx. Calif. (Imperial) 12/12/1952,

iG ‘error on U.S.

“Satanic” is the only description for the nation’s latest mass murderer. Cook’s tour of

_ wanton atrocities is recorded as the most vicious to have been.committed in this decade

14.


5 Doge pee nv ER a ye Sites dati teat

' He seemed like a nice, likeable guy—
always clean and neat. He had a funny
way of smiling at you though, like a kid
caught stealing something.

An employer’s description of William E.

' Cook, Jr.

ARTNER, how about a ride?” he asked.

Lee Burd Archer had pulled his sleek
; black convertible Buick up to a Tahoka,
Texas filling station on the night of Decem-
ber 29th, 1950, when the question was put to
him by a slender, hatless youth in a fur-col-
lared windbreaker.

“How far do you want to go?”

“Joplin, Missouri.”

Archer looked the youth over,'saw that he
carried a small brown duffel bag, and aside
from a drooping right eyelid that stamped a
perpetual leer on his features, he appeared to
be just one of the many hitchhikers to be
found on any big highway. “Well, I can take
you as far as Oklahoma City. Get in.”

At first the ride was uneventful. The droop-
eyed youth dozed most of the time, and when
he spoke his voice was so low that it was al-
most a whisper. They stopped once during the
night at Benjamin, Texas, for pie and coffee,
and at Chickasha, Oklahoma, ‘for breakfast.
Here Archer was about to enter the roadside
diner when he noticed that the youth was
lingering near the car. He went back, locked
the doors, and then had his breakfast. After-
ward the ride continued, through the land of
short grass and high plains, Near Luther,
Oklahoma, Archer sought a short-cut to U, S.
66—the great highway linking the Great Lakes
to the Southwest.

Although Archer had been over the route
many times ‘before, he missed a turn, and after
20 minutes of increasingly unfamiliar country,
he decided to turn back.

When he stopped the car, the youth pulled
a shiny, nickel-plated revolver from beneath

(R.) The once happy Mosser family, who
had gaily set forth for their holiday trip,
were destined for 72 hours of nightmare,
then a cruel death. (L.) Recovered bodies

ity, 2g FS REP TOS Se

his jacket, “All right, mister. Get out,” he said.
Archer blinked in astonishment at the sud-
den demand. The youth’s high-cheekboned
features were impassive. “Get out, I said.”
Archer obeyed. The gunman searched his
pockets, took out $85, then ordered him to
open the trunk ‘compartment, remove the
Spare tire, and climb inside. .
“It’s too small,” was the protest. \
The gun went into his ribs, and he curled
himself on the floor amidst a litter of old road

maps, tire chains and car tools. The lid was:

slammed, and the car got underway,

It was a rough ride, Swaying fromeside to

side, the car went fast, then slow, gears clash-
ing all the while. Inside the trunk compart-
ment, Archer groped for a Screwdriver... When
he found it, he put it to the compartment lock,
began to pry it open,

When he felt the car slow up for a curve, he
decided to take a chance. ° Lifting the lid, he
jumped. He hit the dirt hard, his hands claw-
ing the gravel, ‘As he scrambled to his feet
he heard the car brakes squealing, then a-

voice shouting, “Come back here, you —— ——_

-” He started zigzagging toward a house
On a near-by knoll, ducking and weaving to.
avoid the shot which he momentarily ex-
pected. But as he increased his distance from
the road, he could hear the car speeding off.
Soon afterward he was at the house of Fred
McAlester, who had no telephone, but offered
to drive him to the nearest filling station at
Luther, where he could give the alarm.
While Archer and the hitchhiker had been
traveling northeastward, Carl Mosser, his wife,
Thelma, and their three children—Ronald,
seven, Gary, five, and Pamela Sue, three—
were moving southwestward in the family’s
blue Chevrolet. They had left their farm home
near Atwood, Illinois, on the ‘afternoon . of
December 29th, en route to Albuquerque, New
Mexico, to visit Carl Mosser’s twin—Lieu-
tenant Chris Mosser of the Sandia Base.

47 *


se

wv ee

» a

MINNEAPOLIS MORNING TRIBUNE
Mon., March 26, 1951 vd

° Bitly
Jail Bound 635.
23, who was convicted of
killing an Illinois family, of
five, sat in his berth on a
' train in Oklahoma City,
Okla., bound for Alcatraz
prison. Cook will start serv-
ing his 300-year sentence
there.—AP Wirephoto.

.


captain and had been on a visit to his father
and a hunting trip in Southern California be-
fore being called to service. His equipment
had included at least two rifles and a pistol.

Meanwhile, the spot where Waldrip’s car
was found indicated that Cook was attempting
to head back east. A description of Dewey’s
blue Buick sedan was broadcast. Arizona offi-
cers set up road blocks at Yuma and a hun-
dred miles farther east in the desert at Gila
Bend.

On Sunday a blue Buick sedan crashed
through the Yuma road block and skittered
south into the irrigated oasis that edges the
Colorado River. The officers thought they had
their quarry cornered. But they quickly
learned that he had managed to recross the
Colorado into Lower California: They en-
listed the help of Mexican officials.

He Had To Have Water

Lower California has practically no water
aside from two or three large irrigation canals.
Cook dared not stay close to them, yet he
had to have water. Only a few bad roads cross
the barren, mountainous peninsula and the
one good highway runs 75 miles south from
the border to San Felipe where it deadends.
To all appearances, Cook was simply running
deeper into the trap.

The officers took a different view of it two
days later, however. Dewey’s blue sedan was
found abandoned in San Felipe and Cook had
once more vanished. It was unbelievable that
he could have made his way into the waterless
masses of rock that compose the Lower Cali-
fornia mountains. Although officials still kept

an eye on the border, most of them believed’

that Cook had somehow managed to make his
way back to the United States.

As that belief spread, the wanted man was
reported seen time and again. His left hand
had the words, HARD LUCK tattooed across
the knuckles. A merchant in Albuquerque
spotted such tattooing on the hands of a tough
looking customer. Even in Minnesota a
stranger with a drooping eyelid was believed
to be the fugitive.

But there was soon evidence that Cook was

“still in Mexico.

Centro, Cal., James Burke and Forrest Dam-
ron, were reported missing in the desert with
their maroon 1949 Studebaker sedan. Both
men knew the country perfectly, yet even an
airplane search failed to spot any sign of
them or their car.

Their knowledge of the wild, practically un-
inhabited country offered a faint clue. Mexi-
can police began inquiries all down the eastern
side of the peninsula, centering their efforts in
the small fishing and mining villages strung

‘along the coast.

Back in Oklahoma and Arkansas the hunt
for the bodies of the Mosser family gathered
speed. Gov. Johnston Murray of Oklahoma
and Gov. Sid McMath of Arkansas appealed
to all farmers in the two states to search
their farms on Sunday, January 14, and ‘asked
that all possible volunteers turn out from the
cities. Highway. department workers were

. assigned to search the back roads and the cul-

verts in their districts.. Thousands responded
despite a heavy rain that turned fields and
back lanes into quagmires. _-. uae
The hunt yielded nothing. But south of the
border, Police Chief Francisco Kraus Morales
of Tia Juana received a hot tip. Assembling
a posse, he made his way to Santa Rosalia, 200

miles down the east coast of the peninsula,

arriving on Monday, January 15. ;

The tip had come from the employe of a
mining concern who had passed three men and
a maroon Studebaker sedan on a mountain

road. Morales knew that the men could not

hide out in the desert indefinitely and he was

_ certain that the three men were Cook and the

two missing prospectors. If so, only Cook’s
absolute need for someone who knew the
country had saved their -lives.

Two hours after
reached town. they spotted Cook getting out
of the car, loaded down with guns. He
herded Damron and Burke ahead of him into
a cafe and sat down unaware that the men
who watched him were officers.

Chief Morales and another officer followed.

. Before Cook could more than get settled, they
He sur- -

jabbed him in the back with pistols.
rendered meekly.

“My four aces beats yours, Ed. Mine are all hearts.”

. Two prospectors from El ~

the Mexican officers

“anybody dared hope, however.

Burke and Damron were overjoyed. - They
told the officers that Cook had kidnaped them
when they stopped to help him with “car
trouble.” He had held them captive for a
week, sleeping lightly as a cat at night, his
hands never more than a few inches from his
pistol. But fatigue finally told on the bad
man. He was sick with dysentery. Hoping
for a break, they had finally persuaded him
to accompany them into town.

Questioned briefly by the Mexican officers,
Cook denied that he had murdered anybody.
Apparently he hoped for long drawn-out extra-
dition proceedings. But Mexican justice can
be as quick as it is effective. Chief Morales

manacled the droopy-eyed bad man and ~

loaded him into a plane to fly back to Tia
Juana. There he simply turned his prisoner

over to agents of the Federal Bureau of In- ee

vestigation as an undesirable alien.

' Evidence Weak

California officials had aul charged ;
Cook with murdering Robert H. Dewey, but ~
even though everybody believed him guilty

the admissible evidence was not strong. Until
the bodies of the Mosser family were found
and the officers knew in which county they
had been slain, he could not be charged with
those murders. And Cook definitely wasn’t
talking. He declared that he had gotten drunk
with some man in Blythe, Cal., on December
28 and remembered nothing more until his
arrest in Santa Rosalia.

But Cook didn’t need to talk. While the
manhunt had been in progress, United States
District Attorney Robert Shelton at Oklahoma
City had charged him with kidnaping under
the “Lindbergh law.” Under that law, the
penalty can be death if the victim is harmed.

A total break in the case was nearer than
When news
of Cook’s arrest flashed back to Joplin, Mo.,
a youth went to Detective Chief Carl Nutt
and suggested that the officers look for the
Mossers’ bodies in an abandoned zinc mine
shaft. The shaft, containing more than 100

feet of water, was only two blocks from the i ‘

home of the bad man’s father.

“I knew Cook in the reformatory,” the
youth told the detective chief. “Since I’ve
been out, I’ve been trying to go straight. But
Cook came through here last summer and
wanted me to help him in a ‘job.’ He told me
that if I refused, he’d kill me and throw me
in that shaft. He said he’d already done that
to one man.”

Following the tip, officers called firemen_and ~~

investigated. Their flashlights showed bodies

floating at the top of the water, 40 feet down.

All five of the missing family were there. When

the bodies were brought up; it was found that ~
all had been shot through the head: Mosser’s .
hands had been bound. So had Mrs. Mosser’s
and those of Ronald Dean. Benet:

As this is written, officers are still exploring
the shaft for traces of the first man whom
Cook told his prison friend he had murdered.

They are also trying to determine if Cook © ©

might have had a confederate in the wholesale ©

slaughter and to fix the place where the family

-was killed and the details of that brutal crime. = :

But whether or not they ever succeed in
that last, the outcome is likely to be the same
for William E. Cook, Jr. On January 18,
1951, the federal authorities moved to return

him to Oklahoma City to face quick trial on

the kidnaping charge.


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where, the F.B.I. sent nearly a dozen agents
into Joplin to cover the homes of the bad
man’s father and acquaintances in event he
should re-appear there. :

For the shocked citizenry, the disappear-
ance of the Mosser family and the hunt for
Cook became top news. Even the Korean
war and the tense international situation took |
second place in the newspapers and radio news-
casts. Hitch-hikers practically disappeared
from the highways.

Tips and suggestions began to pour in. Some
were sincere, others hysterical, still others
from persons simply trying to get into the act.
But a report that rang the bell came on Friday,
January 6, from Sheriff Hammett Vance at
Wichita Falls, Texas., 155 miles southwest of
Oklahoma City.

A car containing two men and a woman
and some children had stopped at a country
store and filling station four miles west of —
Wichita Falls about 6 P.M. on Saturday, De-
cember 30. Vance reported one of the men
was light complexioned, the other dark. They-
entered the store together, then one suddenly
grappled with the other.

“Help me!” he cried desperately. “This
man’s got a gun! He’s going to murder me
and take my wife.”

They Broke A Window

One-legged, 63-year-old. E. O. Cornwell,
who operated the establishment, had heard
too many stories about strong arm robbers
to be taken in. He suspected that the fight
was a ruse to rob him. Without -waiting to
ask questions, he grabbed up his .44 “Thumb-
buster” pistol and ordered both men from
the store. Both fled back to the car, jumped
in and sped west in the direction of Iowa
Park.

In the scuffle, however, the two men had
fallen against a window, breaking it, and the
light-haired man had lost his hat. Determined
to collect for the damage, a customer jumped
into his pick-up truck and gave chase until
two shots from the car discouraged him.

Cornwell had not bothered to report the
incident until he read of the Mosser family’s
disappearance and the hunt for Cook.

The label of a Decatur, Ill., clothier in the
hat left no doubt that it had been Carl Mos-
ser’s. But Cornwell’s description of the darker
man failed to match Cook.

Some officers had scoffed at Archer’s story.
It was hard for them to believe that Cook
could have compelled him to drive close fo 600
miles without giving an alarm somewhere.
They were quick to note Archer’s resemblance
to Cornwell’s description of the second man.
While Smith, Lt. Chris Mosser and Texas
Rangers hurried to Wichita Falls, Archer vol-
untarily made the trip from Tahoka with the
sheriff of Lynn County to clear himself of
any possible suspicion. -

Cornwell absolved him immediately and
picked*Cook’s photograph as that of the man -
he had seen. But it was another day before
the officers picked up the next milestone along
the Mossers’ route.

That time, a woman who operated a cafe
near Horatio, Ark., not far from Texarkana
spotted Cook’s picture in a newspaper. Her
story left no doubt that Cook had terrorized
the entire Mosser family and was taking them
by back roads on a swing that ultimately led
back to the north, and slaughter. ,

She remembered that Cook and a man who
answered Mosser’s description had stopped at

her establishment in a car on Sunday evening,
December 31. While Mrs. Mosser and the
children remained in the car, Cook and Mosser
had entered the cafe together. Cook had done
all the talking. He had purchased sandwiches,
cigarettes and coffee and filled their water
bottle. Then he had inquired about roads to
the north and the woman had directed him to
U. S. 71 which runs northward through Fort
Smith to Joplin.

The officers could only guess, but they be-
lieved: that Cook had planned to rob the
family and was waiting only until he could
terrify Mosser into cashing his traveler’s
checks. Once he realized that Mosser would
not do that, he had murdered them and taken
everything he could use. Where had he
murdered them?

The hunt for Cook and for the corpses of
the family, which had shifted to Texas, swung
suddenly back north. Hundreds of officers

“and farmers scouted the fields, the woodlands

and the abandoned coal mines throughout
eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas. Doz-
ens of false clues were run down. Near Tulsa,
the weary searchers still combed square mile

after square mile. They dragged flooded coal —

pits and even the Arkansas River for the
bodies. Several Southwestern sheriffs sent
their airplane posses aloft. Cook had vanished.
The clues faded out.

Then on Saturday, January 7, Deputy Sher-
iff; Homer Waldrip of Imperial County, Cal.,
got a tip that Cook was holed up in a tourist
court at Blythe, Cal., the county seat. He
knew Cook, who had worked as a dishwasher
in a local cafe during the winter. He went
out to investigate and walked boldly into the
cabin.

Suddenly he heard a movement behind him
and felt a gun pressing into his back. Cook was
holding the gun.

“I’ve killed seven people already,” he said.
The bad man’s voice was as deadly as his
weapon. “I don’t want to kill you, but I will,
if necessary.”

Disarming Waldrip, he forced the deputy
to take him in his car and drive out of town
west into the desert. Near the little town of
Ogilby, Cal., he pushed Waldrip from the car
and sped away. He had boasted that he had
murdered the Mosser family and two other
men in Oklahoma. Waldrip told his superior,
Sheriff R. W. Ware that Cook would give no
details and did not identify the two men he
supposedly had murdered beyond saying that
he had left their bodies in a snowdrift.

While authorities back in Oklahoma and
Missouri futilely sought word of anyone who
might be missing, Sheriff Ware and a search-
ing party found Waldrip’s car abandoned a
few miles along the highway from where Cook
had ejected the deputy.

In the trunk they found the body of a man
who had been shot through the head. Papers
on the body identified him as 32-year-old
Robert H. Dewey, a salesman of Seattle, Wash.

The officers knew as well what had hap-
pened as if they had witnessed the crime. Cook
had been afraid to drive the deputy’s car. So
he had pulled out at the side of the high-
way and pretended to be in trouble. No
motorist passes up a man who is in trouble

on the desert. It had been Dewey’s hard luck .

that he was the first along.
dered him and taken his car.
A quick check-up with Seattle authorities
told the officers that Cook had also acquired
an arsenal and full camping equipment. The
slain man, they learned, was an Army reserve

Cook had mur-

(pn ctntinene, Nabe

a ¢

The Mosser family,

rn —

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53

.

BY HUGH V. HADDOCK

Min 1951 AMERICA, a man turned into a mad-dog killer on the
highways. Whatever transformed him, it was all the same to the
Mosser family—Carl Mosser, his wife and three children—and to
Robert H. Dewey. And to L. H. Archer and James Burke and
Forrest Dameron. Maybe to others, also. Nobody is sure, yet,
except possibly the killer.

It was all the same to the thousands of terrified men and women
in a dozen states who shivered at sounds and shadows in the night
and fearfully scanned every man’s face by day. It was all the same,
too, for 50,000 law officers and citizens. They sought the killer for
11 days and nights through two countries in the greatest manhunt
the Southwest has ever seen, fearing that every hour they missed
him might mean another man or,woman or child murdered.
Tulsa, Okla., with its 200,000 population, is a city as modern as
tomorrow. But Osage County, once the Osage Indian Nation,
corners into the northwest section of the city. It is a sparsely
settled jumble of hills covered with blackjack oak and threaded by
rutted, little traveled lanes, within sight of the downtown sky-
scrapers. Except for Deputy Sheriff Warren Smith, who is stationed
in Tulsa to work with the city police, the law is the sheriff at
. Pawhuska, 70 miles away.

That was why nobody at Tulsa police headquarters got excited
on New Year's night, January 1, 1951, when somebody telephoned
that a green 1949 Chevrolet sedan was in the ditch beside a lonely
ranch road two miles north of the city’s swanky new Osage Shop-
ping Center. ‘

“It looks like one of your Tulsa playboys wanted more New
Year’s celebration than he could get by with in town,” Smith
growled to the desk sergeant. “So we'll just let it sit there. Maybe
a good, stiff towing bill will cool the boy off.”

At mid-morning, Wednesday, Jan. 3, however, Smith realized
with a shock that the abandoned sedan was mixed up with more
than holiday merrymaking. A resident of the neighborhood called
in with word that the car was right where it had been first seen on
Monday. What was more, the man added, a stranger had been seen
trying to jack the car out of the ditch on Tuesday morning. Failing,
he, had disappeared and had not come back.

“Have you got the license number?” Smith probed.
“Tt’s an Illinois plate; that’s all I know,” his informant returned.
Smith’s usually placid face was grim and his dark eyes thought-

|
|
. ae
Billy Cook: Fainted, was revived; refused to eat breakfast, but later accepted a cup of coffee then confessed. “
INSIDE DETECTIVE MAGAZINE,

ly (sk =
THE WORST

Eight murders, three kidnapings. This

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cold-blooded killer recalled none of it

ful as he hung up the telephone. The car’s owner would have called
a wrecker when his own efforts failed. So the car was hot. Probably
stolen and used in some criminal job, then abandoned. That was the
way Alvin Karpis and Glenn Roy Wright and other criminals had
worked in their Tulsa days.

Taking a curious newspaper reporter, the deputy drove out to
the scene. They found the sedan with both rear wheels in the ditch
where the road rounded the shoulder of a brush-grown hill, the nose
pointed crazily toward the sky. Tire marks indicated that the
driver had backed off while attempting to turn around and head
back toward the city. Smith hurriedly checked the license plate
against the list of stolen cars on his clip board. The number was
not listed.

Puzzled, he stepped into the -road and crossed to the car.
He knew the score before he ever laid hand on the door handle and
it left him suddenly sick with horror. Through the windows he could
see big smears of dull red across the gay plaid of the rear seat.

“It’s murder,” he announced to the reporter.

‘ Peart do you know that?” the reporter asked. “Where's the
ody? ”

More Than One

“God knows!” Smith exclaimed. “Maybe bodies. There’s too
much blood here for just one murder!”

Opening the door, he found blood all over the inside of the car.
From the floor in front, he picked up ten American Express
traveler's checks for $20 each, all signed by “Carl Mosser,” and
two empty shells from a .32 caliber automatic pistol. In the tonneau
lay a blood-stained blanket that showed a tiny hole, surrounded by
unmistakable powder burns, when he picked it up. Beneath it he
found a water jar, a thermos bottle which had contained coffee
and a cigarette package bearing an Arkansas revenue stamp. Then
a child’s paint book.

Pale and thoughtful, Smith walked back to his car. Raising Tulsa
police headquarters on his shortwave radio, he reported his grisly
find to the detective bureau. He asked, first, that the information
be relayed at once to Sheriff Charles Cass of Osage County at
Pawhuska.

“Then I want help. Ask the Oklahoma (Continued on page 50)

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Billy Cook: The
Worst Since
Dillinger

(Continued from page 23)

State Highway’ Patrol to contact Illinois au-
thorities and trace that car license.”

“What about Mosser?”

“For all I know he could be the killer,”
Smith‘ replied. “Here are the numbers of his
traveler’s checks.” He waited until the sergeant
could write down the numerals and check them
back.

“Ask the State Crime Bureau at Oklahoma
City to see if they can find out where those
checks were issued. That'll give us a line on
Mosser.”

One of the first officers who arrived to help
Smith was dark-browed, stalwart Ray Graves,
investigator for the Tulsa County attorney’s of-
fice and one of Northeast Oklahoma’s shrewd-
est detectives. Within five minutes after he had
parked his car the scene was aswarm with
Tulsa city and county officers. Smith ordered
most of them to spread out and comb the
brush for bodies of the victims or some clue
in the mystery while he and Graves went over
the car with the help of two detectives and a
fingerprint man.

They. found three more empty shells on the,
floor. Probing the upholstery, they dug all five
slugs out of the back seat cushion. Under the
front seat they discovered a man’s blood-
stained pocketknife and an unmailed postcard,
signed “Thelma.” There were no fingerprints.
The postcard, however, gave them something
to work on. It was addressed to a woman in
Atwood, Ill., and showed a scene in Claremore,
Okla., only 25 miles back on U. S. 66.

“Another family that picked up a hitch-
hiker,” Smith said.

Graves nodded tensely. “It looks that way,”
he agreed. “Probably the guy who was seen
trying to get this car out of the ditch yesterday
morning. If we could only get a-line on the
man who saw him.”

The Tulsa County investigator got his wish
that afternoon. Newspapers and radio broad-
casts spread word of the bizarre mystery. While
several hundred volunteer searchers were join-
ing the officers who sought the victims’ bodies,
bluff Pete Essley, who lived on Tulsa’s West
Side and operated a cattle ranch just over in
Osage County, came to police headquarters.

A Droopy-Eyed Killer?

Essley identified himself as the man who
had seen the stranger. He said he had been
on his way to his ranch about 8:45 a.m. Tues-
day, when he passed the stalled car.

“T slowed to see if I could help,” he told

Smith, “and all of a sudden, this guy stood
up and rammed his right hand into his pocket
like he was: going for a gun. I picked up a rifle
I had in the truck and he cooled down right
away. But I still didn’t like his looks and
I was just as happy that he didn’t want any
trouble.”
He described the man as about 25 years
old, of medium height and build, with blue
eyes, thick lips and a drooping upper right
eyelid. The stranger, Essley recalled, was
wearing a leather jacket, gray twill trousers
and loafer shoes.

A few minutes later, the driver of a South-
western Bell Telephone Co. truck reported that
he had seen the man at the car only a few

- minutes after Essley had‘passed. His description

matched the cattleman’s. He told the officers
that the stranger had declined his offer to
summon a wrecker by short-wave radio from
the truck and had asked, instead, to be taken
to the nearest telephone. Despite a company
tule against giving rides to. anyone, he said
that he had taken the man to the Osage Shop-
ping Center and let him out at the corner
drug store.

The manager of the drug store recalled the
stranger when Smith drove out and questioned
him. He said that the man had first asked
for change for a dollar to use the telephone,
then had asked help in dialing to call a taxicab,
explaining that he was not used to dial tele-
phones. Instead of waiting, however, he had
walked outdoors and hailed a passing cab. A
cab with a white top.

Only two companies in Tulsa operated cabs
with white tops. Returning to police headquar-
ters, Smith telephoned both and asked them
to check their waybills to see where the mys-
terious stranger had been taken. Two hours
later both reported that their records showed
no fares picked up at the shopping center on
Tuesday morning, and that their drivers were
sure none of them had laid eyes on such a man.

Downtown, however, the wheels that Smith
had set in motion were beginning to get trac-
tion. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol reported
that the blood-stained car, as well as the trav-
eler’s checks had belonged to 33-year-old Carl
Mosser, a well-to-do tenant farmer who lived
on. the outskirts of Atwood, III.

Blond, small-framed and pleasant-faced Carl
Mosser and his pretty, 28-year-old brunette
wife Thelma were the parents of three chil-
dren. They were, red-haired Ronald Dean, 7,
Gary Carl, 5, and chubby, golden-haired Pa-

“mela Sue, 3. All were missing.

Almost as close in the family group as any
of them was Carl’s twin brother, Chris Mosser.
But Chris was a lieutenant in the Army and
stationed at Albuquerque, N. M., 2000 miles
from the rich farmlands of his native state.

With Christmas over and the winter’s work
caught up, Thelma Mosser had dressed the
kids in their newest cowboy finery. Carl had
packed the tonneau of the car level with the
back seat to make a place where the kids
could. play Roy Rogers, then sleep when they
grew tired. And on Friday, December 29, 1950,
the family had left Atwood, headed for New
Mexico to spend New Year’s and a short winter
vacation with Chris.

A long day’s drive of 600 miles would have
taken them as far as Claremore. Apparently
the family had reached that town without in-
cident and even gone as far as Tulsa the next
day. Relatives had received post cards from
Mrs. Mosser postmarked in the city at mid-

- night Saturday. But there something had

happened. The trail had ended with Carl
Mosser’s blood-stained car deserted on the
lonely road.

That was the story that faced the officers.
“This is the worst since Dillinger,” one com-
mented. The story went out over the news
wires to shock the entire Southwest.

At first glance, it looked as if the Mossers
might have picked up their marderer some-
where in the Tulsa vicinity. But Smith and
Graves got a new jolt as they checked over
the car again in the police garage. On the door
frame, they found a sticker showing that the

Scat ai eit

all Sie sui

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sedan had been serviced at Atwood on De-
cember 28, the day before the family left on
their trip. The mileage was carefully noted. A
comparison with the speedometer showed that
the car hdd been driven not 600 miles, but
nearly 1800 miles.

“That’s a discrepancy of around 1200 miles, *

man!” Graves exploded. “They must have
turned off some place! But where?”

Neither officer could understand why—or
how—a killer would have traveled that dis-
tance with the family, then have brought
them back to Tulsa to murder them. But at
the same time Graves found it hard to believe
that anyone in his senses would have driven
the blood-spattered Mosser car a single mile
farther than was necessary. Even a traffic ar-
rest would have revealed the crime and resulted
in the driver’s arrest.

Any way it fell, though, the important thing
was to pick up the family’s trail. The officers
went into a quick huddle and appealed to the
public through newspapers and radio for any
information that might help. Meanwhile po-
lice radios crackled as messages alerted every

~ officer and police organization in the Southwest.

A Kidnaping Hitch-Hiker

Response was not long in coming. In
Houston, Tex., a hysterical woman told po-
lice that a man with a drooping eyelid had
attempted to force her into a car and assault
her. She declared that she had seen the body
of a blonde baby girl stretched on the back
seat of the car, her throat cut from ear to ear.

While Texas officers pounced on that lead,
an agent of the State Crime Bureau telephoned
excitedly from Oklahoma City.

He said that a man named L. H. Archer
from Tahoka, Tex., far down in the Pan-

‘ handle, had reported Saturday afternocn that

he had been kidnaped by a hitch-hiker whom
he had picked up in the outskirts of Lubbock,
Tex. Archer told the officers that the man had
drawn a pistol soon after entering the car
and forced him to drive to a point near Luther,
Okla., a few miles east of Oklahoma City.
There the gunman had robbed him and locked
him in the baggage compartment of his own
automobile.

“The pay-off is that the guy matches the
description of the man you want for the
Mosser murders, droopy eyelid and all,” the
state man said. ‘“What’s more, he left a sales
slip in Archer’s car. It’s made out to W. E.
Cook, Jr., of St. Louis and it covers the pur-
chase of a .32 automatic pistol in El Paso!
The F.B.I. and the Texas Rangers have checked
back and positively identified him as the pur-
chaser of the gun.”

“All right,” Smith snapped.
guy now?”

“We don’t know,” the state officer replied.
“He boasted to Archer that he was an ex-
convict and said he was headed from Cali-
fornia to Joplin, Mo. We checked with the
Missouri State Highway Patrol and they. say
that a W. E. Cook, Jr., of Joplin has a prison
record. But he darned sure didn’t head for
Joplin after he robbed Archer.”

A farmer. who had seen both men around
the car without realizing the score until Ar-
cher made his escape and setup a yell, had
told the officers that Cook was picked up by
a westbound car containing a woman and some
children and bearing an Illinois license plate.

“The Mossers,” Smith groaned. “He kid-
naped them there.”

“I’m afraid so,” the state officer agreed.

“Where's the

“We had the report within 30 minutes and we
set up a road block west at El Reno, but we
never set eyes on the car. The Missouri au-
thorities are sending us Cook’s record and

picture. We'll rush it to you in the morning |

as soon as it reaches us.”

If the Crime Bureau was right, the Mossers
had picked up their murderer hours before
Mrs. Mosser’s cards were postmarked at Tulsa,
100 miles back. The discrepancy, however,
was understandable if she had mailed them
from a suburban box in passing through the
city.

The next morning brought Lt. Chris Mos-
ser to Tulsa from Albuquerque and Mosser’s
parents and Mrs. Mosser’s father from Illinois.
But, although a dozen tips had bobbed up over-
night at various spots in the Southwest, and
hundreds of searchers were again combing the
Osage Connty hills for the bodies, Smith had
nothing to tell them.

Lieutenant Mosser accompanied Smith,
Graves and Detective Al De Moss to Clare-
more. They found the waitress who had
served the missing family their Saturday
morning breakfast at a hotel. She recalled
how Mrs. Mosser had sat at the table address-
ing post cards, but she could tell them nothing
more.

Other officers drove to Luther and brought
back the farmer who had seen Cook hail the
Illinois car. He identified the Mosser sedan
as the one that had picked up the fugitive.
Officials of Oklahoma County had already filed
a charge of armed robbery against Cook. With
the identification, the waiting F.B.I. moved
into the case with a warrant charging illegal
flight to avoid prosecution. .

The Missouri authorities came through
promptly with Cook’s picture and record. The
photograph and description pictured an un-
prepossessing, sullen-faced young man of 24,
dark-skinned, with blue eyes and curly dark
hair. The record, even more unprepossessing,
was a record of the development of a bad
man almost from infancy.

Left motherless at the age of five, the boy
had been shoved from pillar to post until,
ragged and dirty, he was adjudged delinquent
at 12 and sent to the Missouri State Reforma-
tory at Boonville. After ten months there,
he returned to Joplin. Barely 15, he slugged
and robbed a taxicab driver. :

“That crime sent him back to the reforma-
tory under a five-year sentence. Unruly and
rebellious, he escaped twice. The second time
he was picked up for tampering with an auto-
mobile and sentenced to five years more. Sent
to the Intermediate Reformatory at Algoa,
near Jefferson City, he made friends of the
worst characters in the institution and finally
was adjudged incorrigible and removed to the
state penitentiary. .

For some obscure reason, he had been pa-
roled despite his record, after serving 43

‘months. June, 1949, saw him back in Joplin
for a brief visit with his father. Sitting in
the two-room hovel where the elder Cook
lived alone, he had flatly told his father that
* he intended to “live by the gun.” From
there he had gone to Wichita, Kans., and later
to California.

Smith called Pete Essley and the telephone
man to headquarters to view the picture. Both
positively identified Cook as the man they
had seen at the Mosser car on Tuesday morn-
ing. With the identification, the manhunt went
into full cry. .

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51


Slayings

By Karl

Gilbert.

Special Investigator for

ACTUAL 3 Ate TORIES.
erty (FFF

wrapped the torso in the heavy cloth,
then climbed up the slope to the high-
way, bearing their gruesome burden.

At that moment, Coroner Boone and
Deputy Coroner Russell Welch arrived
on the scene. Behind them came three
cars bristling with deputy sheriffs. Two
press cars, jammed with photographers
and reporters, followed in short order.
Passersby, attracted by the sight of the
official cars, stopped. Somehow the
road became blocked. What had
started as a small crowd grew into a
large one. The dusty afternoon was
filled with blaring automobile horns
and shouts of terror and excitement.

Sweating deputies strove feverishly
to unsnarl the traffic mix-up and to
keep the mob back from the body. All
was bedlam.

“Hold that pose, Coroner,” a photog-
rapher yelled. “And you, Sheriff, get
in this one with him.”

“Got any theories, Sheriff?” a re-
porter wanted to know. “When do you
expect an arrest? Mind if we describe
her as a ‘headless beauty’?” ;

Boone tried vainly to make a per-
functory examination of the body; it

was no use. The air was swarming with .
gnats and mosquitoes, a mother was
shushing her bawling baby, a stray
mongrel sniffed, bristling, at the
canvas.

Boone got to his feet, brushed off his
trousers and beckoned to his assistant.
“Let’s hoist her into the wagon,.Rus-
sell,” he said wearily.

A slightly alcoholic blonde in a slit
skirt and high-heeled pumps protested
the threatened disappearance of the
torso vigorously. “I -want to see the
body. Why can’t I take a peek? What
happened to all her clothes?”

Her demand was swallowed by the

Sheriff Cox, at left, and
Deputy McVeigh with the
ax used to lop off heads

Witnesses saw two women
enter this cabin but no
one ever saw them leave

i}

anne

ae ee

ai
a —-


order of a polite but firm deputy to get
moving. Other deputies aided in dis-
persing the rest of the crowd.

Sheriff Cox called McVeigh to him.
“John, pick about six men and start
dragging the river for the head and
legs right away. I want you to work
the river as far upstream as the H
Street bridge and as far downstream as
the Sacramento River. Spend all week
ar if you have to but do a thorough
fe) at

Then, as Cox was getting into his
car, a lingering bystander made the re-
— the Sheriff had been dreading to

ear,

“She ain’t the first one, y’know.”

All the way back to Headquarters in
Sacramento, the state capital of Cali-
fornia, the phrase kept echoing in the
Sheriff’s brain.

“She ain’t the first one. Ain't the
first one. Ain’t—”

No, she wasn’t the first one. If any-
one had reason to know that, it was
Cox himself.

‘For on June 21, 1948, exactly six
months and one day earlier, the Sheriff
had been summoned to the country on
an urgent call.

; There, in Steamboat Slough, an inlet
of the Sacramento River, Roy Goins of

Walnut Creek had discovered a large
bundle floating in a tract of tule grass.
The bundle was wrapped in a gray
blanket and tied with a length of in-
sulated wire. Goins was sure he’d
found something important but he
5 didn’t know what. He lugged the bun-

‘dle up to dry land, loosened the wire

and opened the blanket.

What he saw sent him staggering
backward with the blood screaming in

temples.
The woman—or all that was left of

Right, Victoriano Corrales:
He couldn't keep his women.
Left, Undersheriff Knoll and
Deputy D. A. Mundt, with
a bloodstained floorboard

Harold McQuillan: He overheard the death quarrel but it was in « foreign tongue

her—was a bloated mass of dripping
tendons and mud-splattered wounds,
She had been decapitated and both her
arms and her legs had been hacked off.

Goins took one last look at the torso,
then fled to the nearest house and tele-
phoned the Sheriff. i

That was where Cox came in. Came
in to take one of the most complete and
frustrating defeats a law-enforcement
officer could experience,

He had seen to it that both the slough
and the adjoining stretch of the river
were dragged. The task proved futile.

Afterward, Coroner Boone and Doc-
tor Arthur Wallace Performed a bril-
liant autopsy. ‘Despite their efforts,
however, they Were able ‘to establish
only a few details about the woman.
She was black-haired, between 26 and
28 years old, had an olive complexion
and had been the mother of at least
one child.

Sheriff Cox had been hopeful. A
woman slain and thrown in the river
was &@ woman missing. Surely someone
would come forward to identify the re-
mains,

But no one did.

THEN the blanket and wire fizzled as
clues. The blanket was without
identifying marks of any kind, and the
wire turned out to be part of an ex-
tension cord—a type of cord sold by
thousands of five-and-dime stores
throughout the United States.

So, day after day, week after week,
Cox and his deputies struggled to solve
the mystery. Like blind men caught in
a maze they described endless circles in
their attempts to reach a solution.

Now, after half a year had Passed,
they were right back where they started
—except that they had two bodies on
their hands instead of one.

‘Sacramento River, it was Possible that

Cox sank wearily into his desk chair
that December day after discovery of
the second one and lighted a cigarette
with trembling fingers. Cop or'no cop,
the shock of finding the second torso
victim had hit him like a kick in the pit_
of the stomach.

Ordinary homicides were bad
enough. They took time to forget. But
this—two women hacked to pieces
—nhever could be forgotten.

A door slammed, interrupting Cox’
thoughts. The newcomer was Under-
sheriff Harry Knoll and he didn’t look
too happy. ;

“We were bad enough off when we
failed to crack’ that June killing,” he
said bitterly. “If we miss on this one
we'll really be cooked.”

“On the other hand, if we solve this
case we may solve the June case at the
same time,” replied Cox.

“You think they're connected?”

“That,” said Cox, “is the question,
and I only wish I knew the answer, On
the surface, they're Similar, But con-
sider this: The June body was found
near the southwest tip of the county in
an inlet of the Sacramento River where-
as yesterday’s was discovered nearly |
thirty miles away in the American |
River.”

The objection was a strong one, but
there was a possible answer. Inasmuch
as the American River flows into the

both bodies had been dumped original-
ly into the tributary. The first, borne
by a swift current, might have floated
into the Sacramento River and down to
Steamboat Slough.

“It’s a plausible theory,”. admitted
Knoll. “But it doesn’t Prove any-
thing.”

“Nevertheless, we're going to oper-
ate on the assumption that the same


Another of the butcher's weapons,

a knife, held by Sheriff Don Cox

killer is responsible,” the Sheriff de-
clared. “At least until someone comes
along with a better idea.” :

Cox’ first move toward trapping the
torso slayer was to obtain finger-prints
of the latest victim, and to have these
prints checked through the files of the
State Department of Motor Vehicles,
the State Department of Criminal In-
vestigation and the local police depart-
ment. Later, when these agencies failed
to make an identification, the Sheriff
had copies of the prints rushed to the
FBI as well as to other leading law-
enforcement agencies throughout the
country. -

Meanwhile, Sacramento newspapers
had printed a photograph of the brace-
let found on the victim’s wrist. No
sooner had the papers hit the streets
than the Sheriff’s office was deluged
with telephone calls by persons who
claimed to know the victim. F

A few of these messages, such as the ¥
one from an Oakland mother and
father who believed the mutilated
woman to be their daughter, had to
wait for verification.

Many of the calls could be and were
swiftly investigated by Cox, Knoll and
~ score of deputies—all to prove value-
less.

Most of-the messages were based on
gossip and idle conjecture and were
discounted on the spot. Again and
again the officers found themselves
listening to time-consuming mono-

Mrs. Angelina Corrales: Officials feared
she might have been the first torso victim

upstart has been carrying on—well!”
Knoll asked, “How long has the
young lady been missing?”
“*Missing’?” echoed the woman in
her thin, reedy voice. “I don’t right-
ly know that she’s missing at all. But
if you want my opinion, she’s just the
we to get herself in. a heap of trou-

With all the politeness he could mus-
ter, Knoll voiced a thank-you and
hung up the phone. He studied the
floor for a moment, then took off his
glasses and slowly polished them with
a handkerchief from his breast pocket.

“Maybe we ought to try to find out
where this bracelet came from our-
selves, Don,” he suggested.

Cox shrugged into his overcoat and
strode to the door. “Well,” he de-
manded, “what are we waiting for?”

The two men spent the rest of the
day tramping the streets of Sacra-
logues like the one they received from mento. They canvassed every estab-
Roseville. lishment that handled jewelry of any’

“It’s the girl next door,” an elderly sort, from department stores to pawn-
spinster said. “She’s a regular little shops. Always they asked the same
snip if I ever saw one. Paints her face, questions:
sits with boys in the back of parked cars “Do you sell bracelets like this? Do

. ° - , and does heaven-knows-what. Play you know where this particular one
Five of the six Corrales children, who left with fire and you get burnt, that’s what might have come from?”
in a hurry at the very first threat of death I always say. And the way this little (Continued on Page 50)

9

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VODA EA LID,

See. etate vere

GETTING THE MAN BEHIND

Sacramento's Twin Torsce

Twice Some Monster Had Slain a Dark-Haired, Slender
Young Woman and Dismembered Her Body. Could
Police Find Him Before a Third Dark-Haired Woman—

HE car came down the road fast The officers halted alongside the boy. “I reckon she won't climb out.”

and when it rounded the curve the Neither of them spoke. It was late af- “No,” McVeigh said, “Climb out is
two men inside saw the boy stand- ternoon and the declining sun cast a one thing she won't do.”

ing under an oak tree with the rifle patina of Silver over the green surface Together the brace of officers lifted

hooked in the bend of his left arm. of the stream. Except for the distant the torso from the stream and depos-

Sheriff Cox slammed on the brakes and splash of a fish rising for an insect ited it on the bank. McVeigh departed

the car stopped in a Spray of gravel. and the soft, steady lap of the water on to get a piece of canvas from the back

Even before the two men got out, the the shore, the countryside was steeped of the car.

boy realized who they were from the in silence, Cox bent over the woman’s body.

seal on the side of the automobile and The body had been beached on the Beads of water glistened on it, along

came forward to meet them. Above shallows and one of the arms had be- with smears of mud. Shining on the

the collar of his jacket his face was come caught in the forked root of a left wrist was a bracelet. Very gently

pale and his eyes were wide with shock. willow so that it could

not drift away. the Sheriff slid the Piece of jewelry off
He said, “I’m Angelo Pellegrini. Staring down at the monstrosity as it

the woman’s wrist. Holding it in the

, I—it’s down there. I'll show you.” languidly rose and fell with the cur- palm of his hand, he studied it

' Sheriff Don Cox and Deputy John rent, Sheriff Cox could understand this thoughtfully.

-' McVeigh followed him down a steep boy’s horror. Lacking a trademark of any sort, the
slope heavily overgrown with foliage. The dead woman once had been pret- bracelet was made of @ yellow gold
en they came to the bottom they ty, perhaps—no one could tell now. Her mesh chain with a raised Plate coy-

were on level ground and the green ex- head had been cut off at the base of ered with jewels—jewels forming a de-

panse of the American River was the neck and where her thighs should sign of two outer rows of green stones
spread before them. ; ve begun were two gristly stumps. and two inner rows of white, Each row
The boy led them through a short Both arms, however, were untouched. contained five stones. On both ends of
=, marsh to the: river's edge. “It—she’s Cox’ lean face was lined with strain the plate was a half circle of green
here,” he said, pointing. “I was hunt- as he got down to his knees. McVeigh

stones. Three of these green stones
ing rabbits and I saw her and at first stepped into the river: and waded were missing.

I thought she was some kind of animal. around to the other side of the torso. Cox dropped the bracelet into his
Then Foe 1 closer and I seen it wasn’t ‘ i said, “You going to Pull pocket just as McVeigh returned with
no animal.” er out?”

the canvas. The Sheriff and his aide

Maria Pulido: She waited Two torsos were dumped
too long to walk away into the American River

The bracelet taken from.
arm of a dead woman


CORRALES, Victoriano, Mexican, Asphyxiated, California (Sacramento) on

Killer, center, shows detectives where he flung young woman’s head into the river.

by TED LEDNER

.

The package bobbing aimlessly in Steamboat Slough just off the Sacramento River in
California, looked harmless enough. But a commercial fisherman decided to investigate. He
had seen the same package In the same spot three days before and he was curious. Bringing
his small boat alongside, he pulled the cloth-covered bundle into the boat. As he did, he
became aware of a peculiar odor. Then as he unwrapped it, he stared in horror at the
contents. |

It was the torso of a woman, with the head, arms and legs missing. Z
10 DETECTIVE CASES, Jyne, 1983.


Detective inspects wooden crate’s gory
contents — the head and severed limb of
Alberta Gomez.

The fisherman turned his boat around
and roared off toward Courtland, two and
a half miles away. Arriving there he tele-
phoned the sheriff’s office at Sac-
ramento, 20 miles upstream.

Undersheriff Harry Knoll, Deputy

De ks

Sheriff John McVeigh, and Deputy
Coroner Louis McGinnis came to in-
vestigate.

McGinnis examined the corpse and
estimated that it had been in the water
two weeks or more. The head had been

cut off near the shoulders; the arms and
legs at the sockets.

There were no discernible wounds,
nor were there any other noticeable

(continued on next page)
7


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The pretty young Mexican refused his offer to live in
the river shack so the older man beaned her on the
head. Then without determining she was dead, he
chopped her up and threw the pieces in the water...

marks or deformities of an identifying
nature. .

Knoll and McVeigh suspected that the
body had drifted into the cove from the

- main channel of the river. The murder

scene might be near by, but since the
water was high at that time of the year,
they believed the strong current might
have carried the corpse many miles
downstream, perhaps from some distant
point on one of the several rivers that
empty into the Sacramento.

The deputy coroner removed the corp
se to the county morgue.

Knoll and McVeigh, aided by deputies

_ Charles Hammett, George Munizich and

other officers, searched along the banks
of the river and questioned some 15
families of fishermen and ranch workers,
but without uncovering any clues’ to the
mystery. :
Early the next day, June 19th, dragg-
ing operations were begun in Steamboat
Slough — an onerous, unpleasant job.
Meanwhile, a report of the discovery
was sent out over the teletype system. It
gave the approximate measurements of
the victim, together with a general de-
scription based on the findings of the
country pathologist. This information
was also given to the newspapers.
According to the autopsy report, the

” woman was probably a*brunette about 28

years old, 5 feet 4 inches tall and weigh-
ing around 120 pounds. The cause of her
death could only be conjectured, but an

analysis of the vital organs was being’

made.

The dismembering had been done
crudely, the slayer using a hatchet or
other chopping instrument to complete

his frightful handiwork.

Missing Persons failed to furnish any
leads. |

The toxicologist reported that he could
find no trace of poison in the stomach or
other organs of the victim. With the
cause of death still undetermined, the
body was buried in the county cemetery.

After several days, the dragging op-

Comely Alberta Gomez’ body was
carved up by madman wielding
large knife and axe.

a2

erations ended in complete failure, no
sign of the missing head or limbs having
been found.

Sheriff Don Cox labeled the case the
most baffling Sacramento crime since
1930, when another ‘‘torso murder,”’
still unsolved, had occurred there.

McVeigh, who was in charge of the
investigation, worked tirelessly to un-
cover some clue to the victim’s identity.

He spent long hours questioning persons
along the river front, hoping to locate the
place where the slayer had butchered his
victim.

In spite of all his efforts, no progress

(was made until July 13th.

On that date, a yachting party of
socially prominent men and women disc-
overed what they thought must be the leg
of a show-window dummy floating in

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Inside this dark shack, two women
found themselves alone with a
head chopper.

Steamboat Slough. .

Upon examining it, however, they
were shocked to find that it was actually a
human leg.

They towed it to shore and notified
Constable Walt Goodman at Courtland,
who called the sheriff’s office.

McVeigh and Deputy Coroner Jack
Lavelle hurried to the scene. The discov-
ery raised their hopes of finding the vic-
tim’s head, which would improve their
chances of establishing her identity.

But although the county autopsy sur-
geon reported that the leg, which had
been hacked off near the hip, was un-
doubtedly from the torso previously
found, renewed dragging operations
were unsuccessful and finally the search
was abandoned. |

Weeks went by, each passing day
making the case look more hopeless. ~

Six months after Goins had made his
grisly discovery, the investigation was
stalled for lack of clues, and it seemed
that it was destined to take its, place
among the unsolved enigmas of criminal
history.

McVeigh still hoped for some kind of
break in the case, but he was forced to
admit that even if the head and remaining
limbs were yet recovered it would now be
next to impossible to identify the victim.

The public had all but forgotten the
case when, on December 22nd, 17-year-
old Angelo Pellegrini went rabbit-
hunting along the bank of American Riv-
er near his home in Sacramento. About a
mile and a half downstream from the H
Street Bridge, he noticed something ly-
ing in some brush in the shallow water
near the shore.

Approaching the water’s edge, he stu-
died the object and gradually recognized
part of a human form, including an out-
flung arm. .

Without pausing for a second look, he
ran home and telephoned the sheriff’s
Office.

A party of investigators; led by Knoll
and McVeigh, accompanied the youth to
the scene and found the headless, legless
corpse of a woman.

She was evidently a girl in her early
twenties, with a slim, shapely figure of
medium height. There were no dis-
tinguishing marks on her body, but the
slayer had failed to remove a gold mesh
bracelet from her left wrist.

Her head and legs had been hacked off

. exactly as in the previous murder, which

led to the belief that the same killer had

_ disposed of both bodies. Evidently he

had started to remove her arms as in the
case of his other victim, for there were
knife cuts along her left armpit.

A preliminary investigation brought
no information from the persons living or
working along the river front.

However, the condition of the torso
led the officers to believe that it had been
in the water no more than two or three
days, and the prospects of solving the
mystery seemed considerably more
favorable than in the Steamboat Slough
murder.

In addition to the bracelet, which
offered a possible means of identifying
the victim, the investigators obtained a
good set of fingerprints from the corpse.

But the investigation that was begun
hopefully soon brought one disappoint-
ment after another.

In the first place, so far as could be
determined, no woman of the victim’s
approximate age and description had
been reported missing. An all-points
teletype bulletin telling all that was
known or could be surmised concerning
her appearance brought no response.

Next, her fingerprints were not on file
at the State Bureau of Identification; and
then came the news from Washington
that the Federal Bureau of Investigation
had no record of her prints.

Dr. Arthur F. Wallace, the autopsy
surgeon, found the murdered girl’s body

‘free of birthmarks, moles or other ble-
mishes, but he pointed to two character-

eden

istics that offered some small hope of |
establishing her identity. One was a
small vaccination. scar, the other was
what he termed a ‘‘hammer thumb,”’ her
left thumb being slightly enlarged.

While the post-mortem examination
was still in progress, Undersheriff Knoll
gave the newspapers his tentative theory
concerning both of the torso murders. He
suspected that they meant that an abor-
tion ring was operating somewhere in the
county, or in one of the neighboring
counties.

This theory received considerable.
publicity, but the completed autopsy
showed that there was no basis for it. Dr.
Wallace found that the present victim had
never been a mother, was not pregnant at
the time she died, and had not undergone
an illegal operation.

No trace of any poison was found in
her internal organs, and the cause of
death, like the motive for the slaying,
remained a matter for speculation.

The approximate date of the murder
was also in doubt. The torso was in good
condition when found, but this might be
due in part to the low temperature of the
water. California and all the western
states were experiencing oné of the cold-
est winters on record.

Dragging operations had begun short-
ly after the torso was discovered. No
trace of the head or legs was found,
however, and after several days these

(continued on next page)
13