William Heirens

On June 5, 1945, 43-year-old Josephine Ross was found dead in her Chicago apartment. She had been repeatedly stabbed, and her head was wrapped in a dress. Dark hairs were clutched in her hand.[7] No valuables were taken from the apartment.[8] Police were unable to identify a dark-haired man reportedly seen running away from the building.[7]

The graffiti discovered upon the wall of Frances Brown's apartment

On December 10, 1945,[9] Frances Brown[10] was discovered with a knife lodged in her neck and bullet wound to the head in her apartment. Nothing was taken,[8] but a message was written in lipstick on the wall: "For heavens Sake catch me Before I kill more I cannot control myself."[11]

Police found a bloody fingerprint smudge on the doorjamb of the entrance door. A witness heard gunshots around 4 a.m., and the building's night clerk said a nervous-looking man of 35 to 40 years old, and weighing 140 pounds, got off the elevator and left around that time.[8] At one point Chicago Police said they had reason to believe the killer was a woman.[12]

Kidnap victim column from The Daily Banner[13] column showing Suzanne Degnan

On January 7, 1946, six-year-old Suzanne Degnan was discovered missing from her first-floor bedroom in Edgewater, Chicago. Police found a ladder outside her window, and a ransom note: "Get $20,000 ready & wait for my word. Do not notify the FBI or police. Bills are in 5's & 10's. Burn this for her safety."[8]

A man repeatedly called the Degnan residence demanding the ransom.[14]

Chicago Mayor Edward Kelly also received a note:

This is to tell you how sorry I am not to not get ole [sic] Degnan instead of his girl. Roosevelt and the OPA made their own laws. Why shouldn't I and a lot more?

At the time, there was a nationwide meatpackers' strike and the Office of Price Administration (OPA) was talking of extending rationing to dairy products. Degnan was a senior OPA executive recently transferred to Chicago. Another executive of the OPA had been recently assigned armed guards after receiving threats against his children and, in Chicago, a man involved with black market meat had recently been murdered by decapitation. Police considered the possibility the Degnan killer was a meat packer.[15]

Acting on an anonymous tip, police discovered Degnan's head in a sewer a block from the Degnan residence, her right leg in a catch basin, her torso in another storm drain, and her left leg in another drain. Her arms were found a month later in another sewer.[14] Blood was found in the drains of laundry tubs in the basement laundry room of a nearby apartment building.[16][17]

Police questioned hundreds of people, gave polygraph examinations to about 170, and several times claimed to have captured the killer, though all were eventually released.

The coroner fixed the time of death at between 12:30 and 1:00 a.m. and stated that a very sharp knife had been used to expertly dismember the body. A basement laundry room near the Degnans' home was located in which it appeared that Degnan had been dismembered, though it was determined that she was already dead when she was taken there. A coroner's expert stated that the killer was "either a man who worked in a profession that required the study of anatomy or one with a background in dissection...not even the average doctor could be as skillful, it had to be a meat cutter"; the coroner added that it was a "very clean job with absolutely no signs of hacking."[18]

65-year-old Hector Verburgh, a janitor in the building where Degnan lived, was arrested and treated as the suspect. Police told the press "This is the man," despite discrepancies between Verburgh's profile and the one that was developed by them as to what kind of skills the killer had, including him having surgical knowledge or at least being a butcher.[19] Police cited such evidence as Verburgh frequenting the so-called "Murder Room," and the grimy state of the ransom note suggested it was written by a dirty hand such as that of a janitor. The police pressured Verburgh's wife to implicate her husband in the murder.[20]

Police held Verburgh for 48 hours of questionings and beatings that severely injured him, including a separated shoulder.[8] Throughout, Verburgh denied involvement in the murder.[16] Verburgh's Janitor Union lawyer got Verburgh released on a writ of habeas corpus. Verburgh said of the experience:

Oh, they hanged me up, they blindfolded me ... I can't put up my arms; they are sore. They had handcuffs on me for hours and hours. They threw me in the cell and blindfolded me. They handcuffed my hands behind my back and pulled me up on bars until my toes touched the floor. I no eat. I go to the hospital. Oh, I am so sick. Any more and I would have confessed to anything.[19]

Verburgh spent ten days in the hospital.[8] It was determined that Verburgh, a Belgian immigrant, couldn't write English well enough even by the crude standards of the ransom note itself for him to have written it. He successfully sued the Chicago Police Department for $15,000; his wife received $5,000.[8][16]

Another notable false lead was that of Sidney Sherman, a recently discharged Marine who had served in World War II. Police had found blonde hairs in the back of the Degnan apartment building, and nearby was a wire that authorities suspected could have been used as a garrote to strangle Suzanne Degnan. Near that was a handkerchief the police suspected might have been used as a gag to keep Suzanne quiet. On the handkerchief was a laundry mark name: S. Sherman. The police hoped that perhaps the killer had erred in leaving it behind. They searched military records and discovered that a Sidney Sherman lived at the Hyde Park YMCA. The police went to question Sherman but discovered that he had vacated the residence without checking out and quit his job without picking up his last paycheck.[21]

A nationwide manhunt ensued. Sherman was found four days later in Toledo, Ohio. He explained under interrogation that he had eloped with his girlfriend and denied that the handkerchief was his. He was administered a polygraph test, which he passed, and was later cleared.[21] The handkerchief's real owner, Airman Seymour Sherman of New York City, was eventually found. He had been out of the country when Suzanne Degnan was murdered. He had no idea how it could possibly have ended up in Chicago and the presence of the handkerchief was determined to be a coincidence.[21]

After Suzanne Degnan's disappearance, the Degnan residence received phone calls demanding ransom. A local boy, Theodore Campbell, later said that another local teenager, Vincent Costello, had killed Suzanne Degnan.[22] Costello, who lived a few blocks from the Degnans, had been convicted of armed robbery at age 16 and sent to reform school. Campbell said that Costello admitted to kidnapping and killing Suzanne Degnan, and had told him (Campbell) to make the calls to the Degnans. Costello was arrested,[22] but polygraph tests indicated that neither Campbell nor Costello had knowledge of the murder.[22]

In February 1946, Suzanne Degnan's arms were found by sewer workers about a half mile from her home after her remains had already been interred. By April, some 370 suspects had been questioned and cleared.[23]

By this time, the press was taking an increasingly critical tone as to how the police were handling the Degnan investigation.[23]

Richard Russell Thomas was a nurse living in Phoenix, Arizona, having moved from Chicago. At the time of the Chicago investigation, he was imprisoned in Phoenix for molesting one of his own daughters, but he was in Chicago at the time of the Degnan murder. A handwriting expert for the Phoenix Police Department first informed Chicago authorities of the "great similarities" between Thomas' handwriting and that of the Degnan ransom note, noting that many of the phrases Thomas had used in an extortion note were similar and his medical training as a nurse matched the profile suggested by police. Although Thomas lived on the south side, he frequented a car yard directly across the street from where Suzanne Degnan's arms were found. During questioning by Chicago police, he freely admitted to killing Suzanne Degnan.[24] However, the authorities were intrigued by a promising new suspect reported to the paper the same day the Thomas development broke. A college student was caught fleeing from the scene of a burglary, brandished a gun at police and possibly tried to kill one of the pursuing policemen to escape. By this time, Thomas had recanted his confession, but the press didn't notice in light of this new lead.[25]

Heirens was subjected to an interrogation under the influence of sodium pentothal, popularly known as "truth serum." This drug was administered by psychiatrists Haines and Roy Grinker. Under its effects he allegedly stated that a second person named George Murman actually committed the killings.

This form of interrogation, which was done without a warrant and administered with neither Heirens' nor his parents' consent, is believed by most scientists today to be of dubious value in eliciting the truth, due to high suggestibility of subjects under the influence of such substances. By the 1950s, most scientists had declared the very notion of truth serums invalid, and most courts had ruled testimony gained through their use inadmissible.[40] However, when Heirens was arrested in 1946, growing scientific opinion against "truth serum" had not yet filtered down to the courts and police departments.

During Heirens' post-conviction petition in 1952, Tuohy admitted under oath that he not only knew about the sodium pentothal procedure, he had authorized it and paid Grinker $1,000.[20] The same year, Grinker revealed that Heirens never implicated himself in any of the killings.

In 1946, after Heirens underwent two polygraph examinations, Tuohy declared the results inconclusive. However, John E. Reid and Fred E. Inbau published the test findings in their 1953 textbook, Lie Detection and Criminal Interrogation, which seem to contradict that assertion. According to the book, the test was not inconclusive, writing, "Murder suspect William Heirens was questioned about the killing and dismemberment of six-year old Suzanne Degnan ... On the basis of the conventional testing theory his response on the card test clearly establishes (him) as an innocent person."

During the Degnan murder investigation, the Chicago Police Department contacted Chicago Daily News artist Frank San Hamel to examine a photograph of the ransom note. Three days after the murder, Hamel told the police and the public that he had found "hidden indentation writing" (writing impressions from a note written on an overlying piece of paper, leaving a ghostly impression). At this news, Storms broke the chain of custody and provided Hamel with the original note for him to examine directly. Since the chain of custody was broken by this action, the note was rendered useless in court no matter the result. After Heirens was arrested for the Degnan killing, Hamel reported that it implicated him. The FBI had previously issued a report on March 22, 1946, that it examined the note and declared that there was no indentation writing at all and Hamel's assertions "[...] indicated either a lack of knowledge on his part or a deliberate attempt to deceive."[20]

Even the actual handwriting on the note has been apparently discredited. Most handwriting experts, both attached to the Chicago police and independent at the time of the original investigation, believed that Heirens had no connections to either the note or the wall scribble. Charles Wilson, who was head of the Chicago Crime Detection Laboratory, declared Heirens' known handwriting exemplars obtained from Heirens' handwritten notes from college agreed with the Police Department experts who could not find any connection between Heirens, the note, and the wall message. Independent handwriting expert George W. Schwartz was brought in to give his opinion. He stated flatly that "The individual characteristics in the two writings do not compare in any respect."

A third handwriting expert, Herbert J. Walter, whose credentials included working on the Lindbergh baby kidnapping in 1932, was brought in. After examining documents written by Heirens, Walter declared that Heirens wrote the ransom note and the lipstick scrawl on the wall and attempted to disguise his handwriting. However, this was in direct contradiction to what he said several months before, at which time he said he doubted that the two writings were authored by the same person. He was quoted as saying there were "a few superficial similarities and a great many dissimilarities."

In 1996, FBI handwriting analyst David Grimes declared that Heirens' known handwriting did not match either the Degnan ransom note or the infamous "Lipstick Message,"[41] supporting the two earlier results of the original 1946 investigation and Herbert J. Walter's original January 1946 opinion. In addition, the handwritings of the two notes don't match each other.[19]

Among evidence suggesting Heirens' guilt is the fingerprint evidence on the Degnan ransom note and on the doorjamb of Frances Brown's bathroom door. However, suspicions on the veracity of doorjamb fingerprints found at the Brown crime scene have arisen, including charges that the police planted the fingerprint since it allegedly looks like a rolled fingerprint, the type that you would find on a police fingerprint index card.[19] Both sets of prints have come under serious question as to their validity, good faith collection and possible contamination; even the possibility of their being planted.

On or around June 26, 1946, State's Attorney Tuohy announced that "there can be no doubt now" as to Heirens' guilt after the authorities linked Heirens' prints to the two prints on the ransom note. It was this assertion, unchallenged by Heirens' defense counsel at sentencing, that helped prompt him to confess to the murders with which he was charged. In a 2002 clemency petition, however, his lawyers question the validity of those prints on the ransom note due to the timing of discoveries of fingerprints on the card, the broken chain of evidence and its handling by both inexperienced law enforcement and civilians.[20]

The Degnan ransom note was first examined by the Chicago Crime Detection Laboratory, but they couldn't find any usable prints on the note. Captain Timothy O'Connor took the note to the FBI crime laboratory in Washington, D.C. on January 18, 1946, with the idea of enlisting the FBI's more sophisticated technology in finding any latent prints. The FBI subjected the note to the then advanced method of iodine fuming to raise latent prints.[20] The process was similar in execution to today's polycyanoacrylate "super glue" fuming in which Cyanoacrylate is heated to a vapor. This vapor sticks to the skin oils on the friction ridges of a latent fingerprint. The older Ninhydrin method, which is a liquid that is sprayed on paper to detect latent prints on paper is similar. The FBI were able to raise two prints which they photographed promptly because, unlike modern polycyanoacrylate, fuming prints revealed by the iodine process fade quickly. Captain O'Connor later testified at Heirens' sentencing hearing that he only saw two prints on the front of the note and did not mention the existence of any on the back.[20]

Upon his return to Chicago, he turned over the photographs of the revealed prints on the note to Sergeant Thomas Laffey, the Chicago Police Department's fingerprint expert. After his examination he stated to the press that they were "... so incomplete that it is impossible to classify them."[20] Despite checking these "incomplete" prints with everyone arrested between January 1946 and June 29, 1946, he was unable to find a match even though William Heirens was previously arrested and fingerprinted on May 1, 1946, on a weapons charge.[20] Heirens was arrested for burglary on June 26, 1946; three days later Sergeant Laffey announced a nine-point comparison match to Heirens left little finger with one of the prints. Then a match was announced between Heirens and the second print. In a news conference, State's Attorney Tuohy declared that "[...] there could be no doubt now" about the suspect's guilt but then incongruously also stated that they didn't actually have enough evidence to indict Heirens.[20]

Months after the FBI had returned the note and the photograph of the note to the Chicago police, the police announced that Laffey had discovered a palm print on the reverse side of the note also matching Heirens to ten points of comparison. No other prints were found on the note, prompting Police Chief Walter Storm to say: "This shows that Heirens was the only person to handle the note."[20]

This declaration is suspicious to some because:

• The Chicago Police couldn't find any prints originally, hence the necessity to send the ransom note to the FBI for further processing, indicating that they were incapable of finding it in the first place.
• Captain O'Connor only mentioned the two prints on the obverse side of the note and none on the reverse. Further, since both sides of the note are photographed immediately after fuming by the FBI, a third print on the reverse side would have been obvious on the note itself and at the time of the development of the photograph of the note. Yet, despite the testing occurring in mid-January, this third print wasn't discovered until early July, six months later and approximately two weeks after Heirens was arrested, despite Laffey working on the Degnan case almost exclusively for six months.[20]
• The original note was previously given to Chicago Daily News reporter Frank San Hamel the previous January (after the FBI had processed it) to examine to find any "hidden indentation writing" that Heirens supposedly left. This broke the chain of custody, making the note inadmissible as evidence in court. Additionally, any number of people, including Hamel, had compromised the integrity of any prints on the note by depositing additional prints and obscuring and corrupting the prints of the culprit.[20]

Indeed, even before the police crime lab got a chance to examine the note, Charles Wilson, the chief of the Chicago Crime Detection Laboratory, stated "When we got the Degnan note it came late after other people had photographed it and handled it."[20] In the same vein, a March 22, 1946, FBI report noted "[...] it is evident that the note has been handled considerably."[20]

These statements are in direct contradiction to Chief Walter Storm's assertion that no one else but Heirens handled the note.

Further, Laffey testified during the September 5, 1946, sentencing hearing that one more fingerprint on the reverse side of the note was linked to Heirens to ten points of comparison. He also increased the points of comparison of the palm print to Heirens from ten to the FBI standard of 12.[20]

As to the fingerprints on the front of the note that were discovered by the FBI in January 1946, Laffey only identified one and did not say it belonged to Heirens when he testified at the sentencing hearing. Only the prints not found by the FBI and allegedly discovered after Heirens' arrest were mentioned at the sentencing hearing and not the two front prints that were supposedly "indisputable" proof of Heirens' culpability.[20] They were hardly mentioned, nor were they linked to Heirens, in a court hearing in which the witnesses had to testify under oath.

As a further indication of what could be called ineffective defense by Heirens' lawyers, none of these issues were raised at the sentencing hearings and no objections were made, nor did they bring up chain-of-custody issues.[20]

Fig. 1 A rolled print from a fingerprint card

Fig. 2 A latent print found on an object, in this case paper

A "bloody, smudged" print of an end and middle joint of a finger was found on the doorjamb of a door between the bathroom and dressing room in Frances Brown's apartment. A photograph of the print was taken, but no match was made with anything on file.[20] After Heirens was arrested on June 26, his prints were compared with the Degnan note. When Laffey claimed a match with Heirens and the prints on the Degnan note, an attempt was made to match him with the doorjamb print. It was unsuccessful, and the police declared him cleared of the Brown murder because the print at the crime scene was not his.[20] Twelve days later, however, it was declared to match Heirens' prints to 22 points of comparison, well above the FBI standard.[20]

At Heirens' sentencing, Laffey testified that the end joint of the bloody print had an eight-point comparison to Heirens' and the middle joint a six-point comparison. The middle joint didn't live up to Laffey's personal standard of seven or eight points to make a positive identification match.[20]

Another source of contention is that the Brown crime scene fingerprint has the appearance of having been rolled, which is the practice of taking a person's inked finger and rolling it on an index card, and not the smudged, bloody and unreadable print as originally reported.[19] Traditionally, after the fingertip is covered in ink from either the suspect's hand being pressed on top of an ink pad or an ink roller being run across it, the finger is placed on the card on one edge. It is rolled once from one edge to the finger's other edge to produce a large, clear print.

Heirens' attorneys did not question the veracity of the prints, however.[20]

Twenty-nine inconsistencies have been found between his confession and the known facts of the crime.[42] It has since become the understanding that the nature of these inconsistencies is a clear indicator of false confessions.[19] Some details did seem to match, like the police theory that Suzanne Degnan was dismembered by a hunting knife and Heirens confessed to throwing a hunting knife onto a section of the Chicago Subway "El" trestle near the Degnan residence. However, it was never determined scientifically that it was at least the dismemberment tool and Heirens had an alternate explanation for it. Further, it was not initially recovered by the police, but members of the press, who recovered it from the transit track gang who found it.

After the Degnan murder, but before Heirens became a suspect, Chicago police interrogated 42-year-old Richard Russell Thomas, a drifter passing through the city of Chicago at the time of Degnan's murder, found in the Maricopa County Jail in Phoenix, Arizona. Police handwriting expert Charles B. Arnold, head of the forgery detail of the Phoenix police in Thomas' hometown of Phoenix, noted similarities between the handwritten Degnan ransom note and Thomas' handwriting when Thomas wrote with his left hand,[34] and suggested that Chicago police investigate Thomas.[41]

Upon being questioned, Thomas confessed to the crime, but he was released from custody after Heirens became the prime suspect.[43] Others contend that Thomas was a strong suspect, given that:

• Thomas previously had been convicted of an attempted extortion – with a ransom note that threatened the kidnapping of a little girl.
• As previously noted, handwriting experts at the time stated that the Thomas' ransom note from his previous conviction of extortion bears similarity in both style in regard to the wording and in form of the actual structure of the letters formed, to the Degnan ransom note.[41]
• Thomas was in Chicago at the time of the Degnan murder.
• At the time he confessed to the Degnan crime, he was awaiting sentencing for molesting his daughter.[44]
• Thomas had a history of violence, including spousal abuse.[41]
• Thomas was a nurse who was known to masquerade as a surgeon. He often boasted to his friends that he was a doctor and he was known to steal surgical supplies.[41] Chicago Police had previously developed a profile of the Degnan killer as having surgical skills or being a butcher.
• He frequented a car agency near the Degnan residence. Parts of Suzanne Degnan's body were found in a sewer across the street from the car agency.[41]
• Like Heirens, he was a known burglar.
• He had confessed freely to the Degnan murder, although he later recanted.

The Chicago detectives dismissed Thomas' claims after Heirens became a suspect. Thomas died in 1974 in an Arizona prison. His prison record and most of the evidence of his interrogation regarding the Chicago murders have been lost or destroyed.[43]

George Hodel is also a prominent suspect according to the findings of his son and former LAPD officer Steve Hodel, who has attempted to link him to the Black Dahlia murder and the Zodiac Killer murders.