February 2008

SFC HEADQUARTERS DOCTRINE

"Read by Thousands Round' the World!"

29 February 2008: Face Lift Murders Continued Next Month

This is Hock B. Hockenhammer broadcasting from high above the United States in frozen, cold Bangor, Maine. I am interrupting this Murder case to announce that the following serial murder case part will soon be continued in March. Coming in like a lion and will avoid that whole...lamb...thing going out. Plus, I will follow-up with the usual, topic-changing, rambling discourse...

The Final act…coming soon…

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26 February 2008: The Face Mask Murders Part 8, Trapped!

Waaay back when in the thrilling days of yesteryear, cops often got together for a couple of drinks or beers after evening shift work. You're too damn tired after a midnight shift. Only, sometimes? These post-evening shift get-togethers weren't inside bars, but were outside. If the weather was irresistible, many of us would opt to park outside somewhere after an evening shift and toss a few down against the rigors of the day. Maybe we'd meet on an open parking lot, or behind a funeral home, or any an empty business, or even somewhere barely, semi-private. Not too private? No problem. You see because we wuz' the law and we wuz' wheresome-ever we wanted to be.

At times these meetingss got a little crazy. One of my favorite times? Several guys had stun gun duels a few of the nights. Man! That was some entertainment! We bet on them. Sometimes the real guns went off, but you know what? All that's still top secret and I'll never tell. Of course, all these shenanigans would be a firing offense in the world of today, so all you little, worrywarts out there rest easy. Rest assured THIS kind of activity is…over. Gone. Completely done with. Modern officers today met for soymilk and diet cookies down at the gospel hall.

One night, we evening-shift detectives parked with some state officers and commiserated against the woes of the world. Howard Kelly, my favorite detective sergeant handed me a beer from a cooler.

“How's yer' mass murderer case goin' ?” he asked, popping the top of a Coors for me. Before the Silence of the Lambs movie, most multiple killers were just called mass murderers.

“Stumped,” I said. “He's gone. I've got an Agg Assault warrant on him. Broadcast all over the country.” I ran the whole deal down to him. The crime. The car. The grandmother. What I did. Howard, with a thumb hooked on a western jean pocket, the other thumb securing a cold one, listened intently. Howard Kelly just lived, loved and breathed a damn, good criminal investigation. And, he knew I did too.

“The grandmother is the only connection I have. But I can't stake out her house every day.”

“Get yourself a mail trap,” he said.

“ Aaaa…mail trap?”

“Yup. U.S. postal inspectors can place a mail trap on a person. It's like a warrant. You file the paperwork. It gets approved and the post office will record every letter the grandmother receives.”

“Christmas. Mother's day. I got the grandmother's birthday off her utility records,” I said.

“Birthday,” Howard repeated, then sipped the Coors. “If he ever sends her anything, they'll record it for you. Your felony arrest warrant will be your probable cause for a mail trap, because a judge has signed it.”

A postal mail trap? I'd never heard of such a thing. It was an oddity, but that was the kind of odd, case-solving trick Howard Kelly knew. I resolved long ago, that when I grew up? I would be like Howard Kelly. Well, except for the Conway Twitty haircut.

It sounds like these parking lot parties were a lot of useless, grab-ass? But in the 1970s and 1980s a lot of work and intelligence was conducted over a shot of booze and a six-pack. Everyone from the FBI, DEA, State people, Texas Rangers - you name it - were a revolving cast of characters there. The topic of discussion was often about police work and crimes and the usual business gossip. A lot of good got done that way, back then. Soymilk and diet cookies just don't bring em' out anymore, and there's no fireworks allowed at the gospel hall.

The next morning I called the U.S, Postal Inspectors Office in Dallas, TX and got a hold of one of their investigators. Two inspectors drove up and met with me, prepared the paperwork and we set up the infamous Mail Trap on Grandma Crane. It had to be renewed every 30 days. I caught up on all the mundane aspects of the case. Crime scenes. Statements. Etc. I even made regular passes by Granny's house. the Cougar remained in place in the backyard, the flat tire still...flat.

Otherwise leadless, I stayed on this mail trap course for over a year, while buried deep in a couple a hundred other new cases.

Nothing that Christmas.

Nothing that Mother's Day

Nothing that year.

Then, the next June? I opened about the 14th monthly, trap report and scanned the address list. Around Mother's Day, Grandma Crane received her first out-of-state letter! The return address was from a guy in San Diego, California. A William Ranch. The handwritten note from my inspector friend said “shaped like a Mother's Day card.”

I called San Diego Homicide and spoke with a Lieutenant. Ran my deal down to him.

“Hmm, wait a minute…you know…you need to talk to Dale Borlan. Hold on…”

“Detective Borlan,” a voice came next on the phone.

“Your LT. thought I needed to speak with you about this,” and I related - yet again - this sordid business.

“William Ranch!” Borlan said. He grunted and rustled some papers. “William Ranch lives at that address! We know that guy. We have questioned him.”

“About what?” I was excited, about to come out of my chair. Good God, I love it when a case comes together. I was buying my own plane ticket to southern California, in my mind. The city won't pay. But I would.

“A bartender disappeared here. His head, minus the rest of him rolled up on a beach a day later. We questioned people that frequented the bar where he worked. William Ranch was one of them."

“Ichabod Crane looking, mother-fucker?” I asked.

“Jesus, a scary-looking son of a bitch. About 9 foot tall.” Borlan said.

“He's your man. He's wanted in Texas. Active warrant. I will fax you everything right now.”

The Final act…coming soon…

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25 February 2008: The Face Mask Murders: Part 7 "Looks to me like you you want to shoot him!"

There was no way I could approach this house by myself. If I so much as knocked on the front door, he'd go out the back door. I had to retreat away, get to my car and drove to a pay phone. Get some more bodies out there. I passed several gas stations and convenience stores earlier on the way up. They all paid phones.

BUT, I would loose sight of this house! I couldn't leave without at very least getting the license plate number on the Cougar. I slogged my way slowly around the east and then south of the house. I shimmied through some thick brush, and found a few open breaks to traverse. I turned toward the back of the house and stalked in.

Closer, quieter. Closer, lower. It was getting darker and just about when I got to all fours and could see the blurry white triangle of a license plate, it was dark. But the darkness was also becoming my friend. I got a bit more gutsy and continued closer inward with an eye peeled on the back of the house and the one, lit window and door I could see.

I got completely behind the Cougar. I pulled my notebook out and jotted down the license plate, and with some neck stretching, got the plate on the other sedan in the yard. God, I'd love a peek in the Cougar. What if the rifle was in there? What if the doors were unlocked? But I knew that anything I seized from this car at this moment would be illegal. We would need a search warrant from a Cooke County judge to seize and use anything in court. But, I sure would like to at least unload that gun and put it right back! If things got hairy later? And he broke for the rifle? At least we would know his gun was empty.

The back doorway held a screen door and a wooden door with window panes at the top. Curtains. If someone came to it, maybe I would see a shadow first? Maybe I would have a few seconds to duck? I pulled my small flashlight from my back pocket. (small flashlights back then were of the two, D-cell size honkers.) I made some quick glances at the door and lit up the interior of the car. Junk inside. Clothes. Fast-food bags. Torn seats. No gun I could see. The doors were locked. I dropped back behind the car.

I had to back out of here, circle the house, get back to the car and drive to a phone. Wait for backup. Who knows how long this would take? In doing so, I would have to abandon the house, the car and the suspect. Me no like. Not at all. On by gun belt was a 5-inch, fixed-blade knife in a sheath. I pulled it and stabbed the right rear tire. (Hey! This guy had killed three people and tried to kill three more. What's a tire vandalism? Anyway, the statute of limitations is over now, so I'm fessing up.) If we get into a car chase with this guy later tonight? At least I will be chasing a Cougar with three tires!

This trek back wasn't easy in the dark-dark. But I worked my way back to the pond and my Thunderbird. The fishermen were all gone. I cranked it up, backed it up and hit the rural route to where my memory recalled the nearest Stop-n-Rob was. It was further than I thought and liked. There was a pay phone on the brick wall front of the store. I dropped in my quarter, got an information operator and in a moment a dispatcher of the local Sheriff's Office. I explained my dilemma and they dispatched the district deputy and a supervisor.

I walked inside the store and sniffed the coffee pot. The sludge was made this century so I bought a cup for a thin dime and cooled my heels on the parking lot for what seemed hours, but was probably only 20 minutes. These days, a wanted, armed, known killer in a house would spur a SWAT raid. But none of us had those newfangled, SWAT-things then, and it was just little ol' me and the two strangers driving my way. I spied a county car coming close and as it pulled on the lot I flagged the deputy over with a badge up and out. We talked. He told me his sergeant was also in route. I asked him to take the sergeant to the grandmother's address as I wanted to get as close to the house as possible right away and at least watch who might come and go from the driveway. He agreed.

As we talked, I pulled out my raid jacket from my trunk, removed my shirt, and put the jacket on. This had “Police” on the front and “INVESTIGATOR,” across the back in large, white, block letters. The time was neigh to be identified. We now needed a uniform at the door, a uniform at the back, and this official jacket would have to do for me. I left.

I parked up the road from Grandma's at a point where I could see both directions of two-way traffic. I drummed my steering wheel with impatient fingers until the two squad cars appeared behind me. Then, the three of us pulled on the front yard.

The Sergeant and I took the front door and the deputy jogged to the back. I banged on the door.

“Yes?” a female called out with a whining voice of enquiry. The more banging - the higher the whine.

“Police, ma' am” the sergeant shouted.

“Oh? Oh!” she said. Within seconds the door opened.

“Police, Mrs. Crane.” I said. “We are looking for your grandson. Is he here?”

“No!” she said adamantly

“Then you don't mind we look,” I said brushing right past here and I felt the need to pull my pistol. Second time today. I didn't make a big show of it, just had it out and at the ready. I made a fast pass through the whole, small house. First run. The sergeant stayed in the living room and spoke with Granny. I heard him tell her that her grandson's car was there in the yard. Then, I made a second, slower pass. Closets. Under the bed, anywhere I thought a giant Ichabod Crane would hide. In the hallway ceiling there was an attic door. There was no fresh dirt or any insulation on the floor under it, but I tugged the rope, pulled down the stepladder and climbed up. Half way up I pulled the light cord. No Ichabod Crane (few searching police ever check the attic. Many criminals hide up there).

When I returned to the living room Grandma Crane told me and the sarge that her grandson had stopped by for an hour or so that afternoon, and a friend came and got him.

“What friend?”

“I really don't know. He just beeped his horn and my grandson left.”

“You say ‘he', was it a man?”

“It could have been a woman, I guess”

“Tell ya' where he was going?”

“Oh no. He asked me for a suitcase and some things…you know…some towels and things. Toothpaste. He was taking a trip with this friend.”

“What has he done? Is he in some trouble?” she asked.

“Well, last night, he…shot a burglar, Mrs. Crane,” I told her, “and we have to check out all the possibilities.”

“Shot a burglar? He didn't mention a thing to me about it. Dear God.”

“See him with a rifle?”

“Noooo.”

“Has he been staying here?" I asked, with a look around the living room.

“No, but he visits me.”

“My card,” I handed her one, “if you see or hear from him. Will you call me? We need to buy him a dinner for shooting a burglar.”

“Looks to me like you want to shoot him.”

“Just call me,” I repeated with a smile.

“Yes,” she said. But, I doubted it.

The sergeant and I wandered the yard and met up with the deputy in the back. I took a few Polaroid pictures of the Cougar. I would let my D.A. decide if he wanted the car impounded or not for the case. It was just a transport vehicle for Crane to take Mars to the hospital. Might be some blood in there but at that era, a car like this was not essential to impound to prosecute a case. Blood spatter evidence was a new science compared to today. Juries didn't expect super-science cases. Today they want DNA reports. Back then Polaroids made them happy. I might return with a 35mm to take pictures in the daylight. Personally, I would rather leave the car here and “at large.” Then maybe someday, if even years from now even, he might retrieve it and we have a method of catching him in it.

“We'll keep an eye on the house,” The sergeant told me.

“Crane has a head start. No telling where he's gone,” I said. My head was reeling with possibilities. Bus stations. Trains. Airports. Rides from “friends.” Lying grandmas. Possibilities without practical solutions. No manpower. No communications. Just me scratching my head, standing in the dark, off a country road.

“Hey, that car's got a flat in a back tire,” the deputy called out.

“Yeah…how about that,” I mumbled.

Coming soon…part 8

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22 February 2008: The Face Mask Murders: Part 6: To Grandmother's House We Go

"Dusk. I crept upon the small, country house through the trees. Interior lights were

popping on. There was movement inside. The serial killer’s black

Cougar car was in the dirt driveway behind the house..."

How did I find this suspect’s house? It goes back to Clovis and I returned to the station and I had tons to do.

“I’ll get the statement from Mars,” Clovis offered. “If you’re still busy, Russell and I will go back out to factory.”

“Great!” I said. I marched into my office and got on the phone to the detective division of Wichita County Sheriff’s Office. I was passed around until I found a Sergeant who knew the whole Ichabod Crane crimes.

“I wondered where that fucker would show up next,” he shouted to someone off the phone, “Hey! Crane just shot a guy in Denton.” The sarge was an old hand and a big help. He dug up the old Crane reports, jail ID sheets and everything he had. Within minutes he was faxing them all to me. We started talking about tracking Crane.

“His momma’s dead. Daddy’s dead. But, he’s real close to his gramma. She’s all he’s got.”

“Where’s she live?” I asked.

Up north and east of Gainesville. Her address is in the reports. Next of kin.”

“Next of kin,” I repeated.”Thanks.”

Next of kin. I got all the reports. The grandmother- Lily Crane, still lived up there, according to Cooke County utility records. Back then, getting that information that was an easy phone call to find out. Now it would take the CIA to find that out. I called the Westgate hospital. A nurse fetched Clovis from the Mars’ hospital room.

"Clovis George, ” Clovis said.

“Clovis, I gotta’ go to Cook County and see if Crane is at his grandmother’s. Can you get a warrant on this guy? Skip the crime scene for now, take the signed statement to Jerry Cobb or Freddie Marsh before 5pm, and get an arrest warrant on Crane?”

“Yup.” he said.

As far as I was concerned Crane was now what we call “a flight risk.” He fled Winkle’s for obvious reasons! He knew, given his past, he was in big trouble. If I found him I would arrest him as a flight risk and let the arrest warrant catch up with us later. I could argue flight risk and good intent. I showed legal, due-diligence by organizing Clovis in this manner. (I am a graduate of the “District Attorney Jerry Cobb’s Law School of Hard Knocks and Street Corner Justice.” I actually had a good, working knowledge of the law and the courts, thanks to Cobb’s - and Howard Kelly’s - patience).

I grabbed a portable radio from the charger. Then I drove home. I changed clothes. Dark clothes and shoes. I strapped a good gun belt on under a large, untucked shirt. I pulled on a “John Deere Tractors” ball cap on my head. On the outside I looked like I’d just jumped off a dump truck. On the inside I was the freaken’ Lone Ranger on steriods. (Bullet-proof vests were too expensive back then for us.) I tossed all my gear, shotgun, ammo, flashlights, binoculars, etc into my 1970s Ford Thunderbird. This was a giant boat of a car, but a “civilian” car and I needed something low-profile to snoop around in. This wasn’ t exactly department protocol to leave like this and in your own car. But we all did it. Even our captain used his Ranchero on many a stakeout with us. If we banged up our own POVs (personal owned vehicles) we were out of luck. (One insurance company canceled me because of my penchant to do police work in my own cars.) But a driven fanatic has to do what a driven fanatic has to do. I am sure my wife (second at the time) grimaced as I drove off in our family car on another crazy mission.

I filled the Bird up (about 50 cents a gallon?) and raced up to the country hills, ranches and farms of Cook County. I hoped that my portable radio would work that far out. I could at least switch over to our county channel and might reach the dispatcher there. We did not have a Cook County Sheriffs Office frequency channel. There was a lot of talk back then about bouncing radio messages around, but I counted on the radio not working. Hell, we couldn’t get the radios to work inside our city limits sometimes! They didn’t...bounce. Anyway, I did plan on just a dry run snoop up there anyway. I would get to a pay phone if possible and call Cook County for help if I really needed any.

By late afternoon, I was in the rural area of Grandma Crane’s. It took a few passes on the route to pinpoint the right house. It sat isolated and back and down in a grove of trees in some lowlands. Grandma had herself a few acres! I found a few dirt roads nearby a pond where some ol’ boys were drinking beer and fishing. I parked my car near them. Perfect and not at all suspicious. Only fishing was not on my mind. Hunting was. With a flashlight in one back pocket, a radio in the other, binocs looped over my neck, and a gun belt to beat all - all hidden under a long shirt - this here, tractor driver imposter wandered off into the woods...to Grandmother’s house I go.

On these kinds of deals, you start off walking tall at first and as you get closer you start crouching over and tip-toeing in. I was near the crawling stage when I got a good look at the side of Grandma Crane’s house. Now, at times like these? You have to worry about dogs. Loose dogs. (Remind me to tell you some other time about me and Danny McCormick and a string of bad-luck dog...incidents...he and I have had at times like these.) So far no dogs here. No water bowls even.

It was dusk and lights were popping on inside the house. There was the black Cougar on a dirt road behind the house! And a another older sedan. I pulled the binoculars up and started a study of the windows. Grandma Crane was all I could see in the kitchen.

I had to hit the house because of the car. I backed off aways and pulled the radio from my pocket. I switched it on.

“Denton CID 89 to Denton S.O.,” I said several times into the hand-held. No response. HA! I may as well be calling in from the moon. No help! But I had to hit this house!

Part 7 coming soon...

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19 February 2008: The Face Mask Murders: Part 5: 1 Plus 2 Equals 5

The two-story metal factory, shabby and decades old, stood gray and rusty upon what looked like flat, dried-up farmland. The grounds were trashed out with junk vehicles and well...tons of junk. Scraps and piles of metal works, car and truck frames. Just an eyesore mess.

“I’ll go in the front,” I said pulling into the dirt driveway.

“I’ll take the back, and if he runs put the back and shoot em' down! HA!” Clovis declared. You would have to know Clovis to appreciate his sense of humor.

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

I stopped our sedan beside some pick up trucks parked out front. I had no idea what Winkle or Crane was driving. Clovis jumped out with his shotgun, and jogged to the rear of the plant. I passed on my scatter gun and decided to try this with just my .45. I hate searching homes and buildings with a shotgun or any long gun for that matter. Too many tight corners to navigate.

The morning air was chilly. The world out there on the outskirts of town was still and peaceful, oblivious to all the drama. I opened the metal front door of the factory and stepped inside. It was way darker in there and I hung by the door for a few seconds letting my eyes adjust. As the interior materialized in focus before me, I could see the place was just a metal barn, really. Filthy inside. Smelled of burned oil and old grease. Not a sound. Flat creepy. I pulled my gun, held it low beside my thigh and walked in. I halfway expected to be shot at by a hidden Crane and then, half not. Anything could happen. In one corner I saw a sleeping bag, a pile of wrinkled clothes and some grocery bags. The deeper I went, the louder I heard a conversation. Two men. They were out back. Outside. I could hear Clovis talking. Ahead behind a wall, in a corner, I spotted a back door. I hustled to door and stepped outside.

Clovis, his shotgun low and casual, was busy talking to Winkle.

“He’s gone,” Clovis told me.

“Gone? Gone where?”

Winkle sucked on a cigarette and shrugged his bony shoulders. I took that as a “I don’t know.”

“Where’s he live?” I asked, holstering my pistol.

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe because he lives here? I saw that sleeping bag inside. He wasn’t working a night shift was he?”

Winkle shuffled his feet. “Nahhh, he did a little work at night too, but he stays here a lot.”

"Where’d he go? How did he leave?"

“In his car. As soon as we got back, the moment we got here, he left my truck, walked straight in the shop. He grabbed a knapsack and the rifle and left. He got right in his car and drove off.”

“You tell him what really happened?” I asked Clovis.

“Yup.” he said.

“You are lucky to be alive I think, Winkle.”

“He’s got that gun, but it is my rifle.”

"You got a serial number on that rifle?"

"Somewhere."

"Got any empty shells from it." I'd like to have a firing pin signature on file.

"Maybe. Somewhere."

"Well, has it ever been worked on? Ever? Most gunsmiths will record a number." I persisted.

"Nah."

"It ejects shells? What kind is it?"

"Its a lever action. 22."

I shook my head. That meant there was at least one spent shell kicked out and laying somewhere in this metallic wasteland. Inside or outside? I would have to come back on that point. “What kind of paperwork you got on him? Next of kin? Anything?”

Winkle dropped the cigarette to the dirt and twisted it dead with his boot,” I got sompthun.’ Lets go inside.”

Clovis followed him into the office and I stopped in the hallway, turned and walked the whole place scanning for a spent .22 shell. Nearly impossible without an idea where to look. I searched the sleeping bag and gear. I used a metal pole to prod and sift through the debris of Crane's life. I went through the pockets by bare hand. Nothing personal. Nothing helpful. Just fowl, stained and stinking clothing and a crusty sleeping bag. Junk food in bags. He probably had a hinding hole of more important stuff in here somewhere, but I'd be damned if I could find it that morning. I had to find him or the shell first!

I heard Clovis laugh from the office. The way it sounded, Clovis was getting along real well with Winkle, and I was too pissed at him to do any real good anyway. All his one-word, slow and reluctant answers. I wandered the plant lagain looking for blood stains or anything else we might need for a case. Clovis and Winkle emerged from the office. Clovis carried some papers and winked at me.

“After I get a statement from Mars, I will have to come back and take some pictures,” I told Winkle. “After I find out from Mars what happened and exactly where in here. I may have to bring him out here and have him point things out to me.”

We left. As soon as we climbed into the car, Clovis told me what he had learned. “I got a copy of Crane’s employment sheet. Its all bullshit. Phony name, phony everything. Roy Tab this, Roy Tab that. He worked there for about 4 months. Good worker. Winkle said that Crane owned a black, 70s Cougar.”

“Any chance of ....”

“No license plate,” Clovis finished the thought for me.

I pondering the next steps, as we drove back to headquarters:

1) ABP on the Crane, and a black 70s Cougar. Unknown plate.

2) Call Wichita County, TX for ANY and all background info on Crane, to start the hunt.

3) Get a very, detailed statement from Mars.

4) Get a crime scene search done of this plant. Russell Lewis would come back with me.

I feared that before I could get any substantial leads, this son of a bitch would have a great head start. To be painfully honest I took this moment as a major league failure in my part. If only I had recognized Crane from that intell poster - albeit ten years older and bald - while back in that brief moment in the hall of the P.D. earlier that morning, I would have handled the whole thing differently and corralled him. If only. No one else felt this way about what happened in the unfolding span of those 2 hours. Quite a number of officers, from the first responding patrolman and detectives saw Crane also and did not recognize him. You might feel the same and cut me this slack. But, I personally felt as though I was put here on this planet to hit grand slams in detective work. My job, my mission in life was to see 1-plus-2 and come up with 5. At least a 4! In the first two hours of this sorry morning I came up with the obvious 3. I tell you that I would not let this go.

1 plus 2 equals 5 or even more this time, and this hunt was on, big time.

Part 6 coming soon...

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16 February 2008 The Face Mask Murders: Part 4 "The Lying Started Straight Away."

“William Mars?” I asked as I stepped into the hospital room.

“Yeah?” the patient said.

“How are ya’ doing?”

“They said I am okay. I ain’t feeling no pain.” Mars was a white male, 28 years old. Short brown hair. His torso was wrapped in bandages. Prone. Hooked to to IVs and beeping electronics.

“I’m Detective Hochheim.” I flashed my badge. “Got a question for ya’. What were you doing walking down Dallas Drive at 4:30 in the morning?” I got right to it. He didn’t like it. The lying started straight away, right there.

"Oh, I was on a lunch break from my job. I work midnights at Leevers.”

“Leevers on Morse street?” I asked. I pulled a chair up beside the bed and sat.

“Yeah,” he said.

“And you walked, on a break, over to Dallas Drive.”

“To the 7-11. Only thing open.”

“And you walked.” It was a significant ways. “Where’s your car?” I asked him. The car, a car, was the key to this whole deal. Either he had a burglar accomplice, or? Well, a car was the key.

“My car?” he repeated.

“Your car. The thing you go back and forth to work in, that thing. Even take breaks in.” He knew that was a key question. I could all but see his little rat trap mind spin.

“Look, I am the one shot here, why are you...” he complained.

“Where is your car?” I asked again.

“Its...its at Leevers.”

“How did you get to the hospital?” I asked.

“Ahhh, I flagged somebody down driving by and they drove me here.”

“After you were shot by a stranger, another stranger happened by and took you to the hospital?”

Silence.

“William, here’s the deal. At 4:40 this morning, a worker at factory shot at a burglar. We got the bullet they carved out of you. We got the rifle he used...”

“I ain’t no burglar! I was no burglar!” he declared.

“Then tell me what you were, because all this lying is going to get you in trouble.”

His face scowled. “Shit! Look this ain’t what it sounds, okay? I was at the 7-11 on my lunch break. This guy came in and we started talking. Both of us work the midnight shifts and we...we started talking. He invited me over to his factory. To eat. Its my lunch hour. We drove over there in his car. Mine’ still at the 7-11. When we got there, he started acting all weird...”

“Weird?”

“Sex...weird. He pulled out this rifle and he got all kinds of weird, alright? I mean, he...he made me do some shit! He was holding a rifle on me and I was in this place all by myself. I didn’t know he worked alone in this place. There are ten guys working mids where I work.” I was beginning to get the picture. As we say in the business. Queer deal. I will let you pass on hearing some of the sordid details.

“How did you get shot?” I continued.

“I had a chance to get away. He put down the gun. I started to run. He shot me in the back. I fell down and he ran up to me. He was real apologetic, saying, ‘why did you make me do this?’ and all. He said he shot me to wound me, not kill me. He looked at my wound. He patched it real quick. He took me to the hospital in his car. He said that if I never told anyone what had happened, he would help me. He would take me to the hospital. We made up the story about the shooting on Dallas Drive.”

“I need all this in a statement as soon as possible, William.” I stood. “I will probably be back with a tape recorder or I will borrow one of the typewriters from the nurses station and set it up in here.”

“You believe me?”

I smiled. “Yes and no. I just need a statement from you. It will help you.”

“Will it...like...become public and all?”

“I don’t know. I will be back this afternoon.”

Roy Tab’s whole burglar story is bullshit, I thought as I drove back to the station. Maybe I could catch Tab and Winkle still at the P.D. I raced across town, pulled in the back lot, bailed and ran into the back door of the station. When I got to the CID lobby, I saw Millie working on some paperwork. Her interview chair was empty.

“They gone, MiIllie?”

“They’re gone. Just missed them,” she answered, never looking up.

“You get a look at his drivers license?” I asked her. Millie always used it to fill out the top of a statement and as a notary public, she also like to validate who she was talking with.

“Nope. He said he left it at home,” she said.

He ain’t no Roy Tab, I muttered to myself. Who in hell...why was he so familiar looking...tall, gaunt, ugly....could he....could he? I marched down the hall and started peeling bulletins and reports off the hallway bulletin board. I found it. Ichabod Crane. He was now ten years older. His head was shaved. But Roy Tab was Ichabod Crane. I plucked the sheet from the wall.

Just 15 feet away was Captain Bill Cummings office. I stuck my head in the doorway and held up the paper.

“Remember this guy? This is the guy in the factory last night that shot a so-called burglar. Only the burglar wasn’t a burglar.” I quickly told him the William Mar story I had just learned.

“I’ll be damned. Go get him. And take somebody with ya!” he insisted.

“On it,” And I was. That great rush/mix of excited, focused and pissed all in one. Winkle and Crane probably went straight back the factory. Or, maybe to eat breakfast somewhere? But! But if Crane know I was off to see William Mars? He knew I may well find out the truth from Mars. Trouble. I made a pass through the CID offices. In one, Clovis George was hard at work. Clovis was a good hand and we had been in some tight spots together through the years.

“Clovis!” I held up the Crane warning sheet and his eyebrows rose. I said, "Lets go get this guy! Bring your shotgun!”

Part 5 coming soon

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13 February 2008: The Face Mask Murders: Part Three - A "Lawsmens" Life

They say that in dog years, dogs age faster than people. In detective years there is a similar time warp. In eight months time I covered a lot of ground. When you figure that each month I was assigned about 25 cases on average of any and all types, normal-people-time slips away. That means 25 complainants, 25 times multiple witnesses, and 25 or more suspects, all times 8 months. Compressed people, problems, pressures, puzzles and cases. Each month builds a taller pile of previously unfinished cases.

The bulletin board in the hallway goes through its own warp of change. It was a changing place of news, photos and announcements. The foreboding photo of Mr. Ichabod Crane was soon buried under layers of alerts, tragedies and be-on-the-look-outs for missing people, cars and who knows what all has gone stolen and/or missing. Eight months to a busy detective could mean 1, 2 or even 3 normal-people-years?

In the 9th month, in one morning detective squad briefing, CID Lt. Gene Green was handing out the morning assignments amongst the investigators. He had a daily few for me:

“Here’s a duet special just for you Hock.” He looked at the report through his bifocals, with a big Gene Green grin. “William Mars is at the Westgate Hospital. He said that he was shot by an unknown person that drove by him as he walked down Dallas Drive at 4:30 am in the morning.” The victim stumbled into the hospital ER. A detective on call, was phoned so late on this on this, near 6 am, he stayed in bed. No one to interiew-the victim went straight into sugery. There was no, known crime scene. The docs would routinely save the bullet for us.

Lt. Green held the very tip of the crime report between two fingers as though it stunk and handed it to me. This was an era by the way, BEFORE the wave of rap gangland, drive-by shootings. So drive-by shootings were not common-place. Back then in Texas, killers had the common courtesy to stop their car, get out, cuss, kick dirt on your shin and then blow your brains out. Rap music destroyed all these pleasant rituals.

“Then!” Green continued, “here is another report of a burglar shot at while breaking into a factory by a night shift worker. Coincidentally about 4:30 am.” He handed me this second crime report. “I think these two might go together?”

Ya’ think? Probably. There were a few chuckles in the room from Larry Brearley, David Wright, David Scott, Bob Summers, Clovis George and the usual others of us, all inhaling bad coffee and dressed in simple, low-end, JC Penny suits and polyester, western clothes. I take that back - ol' Clovis George really enjoyed wearing his Johnny Carson/Tonight Show, suit line. When the morning meeting was over I picked up the phone and called both the factory and then the hospital floor of William Mars to set up fast interviews. So allow me to recap the next, fast 40 minutes in some kind of order for you:

First Call
First call to the factory. Winkle’s Wire and Mesh. Small place on the outskirts of town. We all knew Mr Winkle. For most of his 40-plus-year, life, Mr. Winkle was pretty worthless. He lived the life of late night clubs and bars and barely kept a factory job. He was also always on the outskirts of DWIs and trouble in general. His momma died and left him with an inheritance. He took this nest egg and DRANK more! He picked up with a local, gold-digger, lizard-lounge for a wife - post inheritance. But he also bought a small, failing metal shop on the east side and managed to stay one step away from the creditors and keep it alive. I didn’t like Winkle. He was a low-life, waste of space, drunk and druggee on a small time, roller-coaster ride of momma’s money. But professionals must be polite, even wanna-be, professionals like me. I know he didn’t like me either.

“Winkle’s Wire and Mesh,” It was Winkle himself who answered.

“This is Hock form the police department.” I said...politley, “Heard you had some excitement there last night?”

“Yeah! Our midnight guy was working and shot a a burglar breaking in the back”

“Well he’s a hero around here.”

“He’s a hero here too! He didn’t know if he shot anyone. He just shot at him and the guy ran off. He told the officer he just shot at a burglar.”

“We probably have the wounded suspect at Westgate and I need to get over there to the hospital and get his story locked down before they release him. I need an arrest warrant but I need a signed statement from your man. And as soon as possible. Can you get him down here right away?

“He’s standing right here,” Winkle said. “I’ll bring him myself.”

“When you get here, come on down to the detective office lobby. Ask for Millie Miller and she will get a statement from him about what happened. Just a short one. Something to get me going.”

Second Call
Second call went to the nurses station of Westgate. I spoke to the nurse in charge.

“This is Hock from the police department. I am the detective assigned to this Williams Mars shooting. He doing okay?”

“Yes he is. He was shot in the side. But he is okay.”

“He is going anywhere real soon?” I asked.

“Ohhh no. He ‘s wrapped in bandages, hooked up to an I.V. and here for awhile. The doctor will be in to see him this afternoon.”

“Is he awake and talking?”

“Yes he is.”

“Well. Don’t tell him we called. We’ll let him rest a bit. I’ll stop in to see him tomorrow sometime,” I said, just in case Mars did get the word the police called, he’d think he’d had a full day to recover and try to crawl out of there before “Johnny Law” would come a’ calling. (We use to hear ourselves called “Johnny Law” often and another winner name I never understood. “Lawsmens.” Yes, the word laws combined with, not even just “men,” but “mens.” Lawsmens?)

Third Call-this one to me

“HOOOCCCK!” Millie shouted from the lobby. “DA’s Office, line 2.”

“Damn!” I cussed and picked up the phone. It was a pre-trial interview on another case coming up. I was stuck for at least 20 minutes, maybe more. I snatched up another case file, and got cozy for the rambling questions, possible pitfalls and strategies for another pending case.

Done with that, I chucked the file in the cabinet, grabbed my coat and left the office. Who’s walking down the hall but Winkler and a giant, bald, skinny guy beside him.

“Hey!” I said.

“Hock, this is Roy Tab.”

“The hero!” I said, and guided them to the detectives wing and to Millie Miller. “She’ll get a statement from you about all this. I have got to get to hospital.” They sat down in chairs by Millie’s desk.

I hustled out and jogged to my car on the back lot, thinking, “man! That Roy Tab looked awful familiar.” On the drive to Westgate I wondered, “where have I seen him before? I have never heard the name Roy Tab before.”

Part four coming soon

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11 February 2008: The Face Mask Murders: Part Two - Technicality Was a Dirty Word

“What the...?”
On the hallway wall outside of our detective offices, hung a large cork, bulletin board full of wanted posters and regional intelligence bulletins. One rather unique, new poster caught my eye one morning and stopped me cold in my tracks. It didn’t have the usual “wanted” in block letters across the top. Instead it read “WARNING!”

Warning? This sheet of paper contained a large, disturbing photograph of a man shown from knee-high and above. He seemed very tall with a dark jacket and a large collar turned up. Wild, long, combed back, dark hair. 40 years old? Thereabouts. Gaunt face. He was tall and thin. And...posed. Posed slightly sideways as if coached by a portrait taker. It was almost like a movie poster. Behind him was an open field and I swear it looked like sunset. Just a creepy, odd photo. This was certainly not your average police photograph or any kind of mugshot. This must have been a swiped photo from the guy’s house or from a friend? I took a closer look at the face.

“Ichabod Crane,” I whispered. He looked like a horror movie poster.

Captain Bill Cummings walked down the hall and spotted me talking to myself.

“That’s a killer,” Cummings said. “ That guy killed three airman south of Wichita Falls four or five years ago. Torture deal.”

“Queer deal?” I asked. (Hey, come on. Look! That’s just what we called those cases back them!)

“Yeah. I remember when it happened. The investigators screwed up the case and the courts released him about three months ago over a technicality. The Wichita County Sheriff’s Office mailed this flier all over. And triple murder is not all he’s done.”

I stared at the face.

Cummings thumped the poster several times with his index finger, “That’s the most dangerous son of a bitch in Texas right there,” and he walked off.

If the west Texas detectives wanted to scare you with a poster, they picked the best picture. There were some paragraphs of text above and below the photo. They told a synopsis of the three Sheppard Air Force Base air servicemen murdered in an isolated park. It mentioned some of the other felony attacks he committed through his lifetime. From then on I nicknamed this guy Ichabod Crane and will do so from here on also.

Now Crane was free on a techicality. Texas and the whole country was in a correctional/penal crisis back then. The penitentiaries were seriously overcrowded. In Texas, circa the 60s and 70s a feller could get life for possessing or selling marijuana. These plentiful Mary Jane smokers took up a whole lot of cell space. Plus, the country was in an uproar over the early, parole releases of violent criminals AND the continual release of felons over small mistakes made by the police and prosecutors. Crane here was a giant mistake of serial killer proportions. I can only imagine that the west Texas detectives tried every trick in the book, every stretch to get this killer behind bars? If I did find out these details way back then? I don’t recall them now to tell you, but “technicality” was sure a dirty word we hated to hear.

“That’s the most dangerous son of a bitch in Texas right there.” I thought again about what Cummings said as I left headquarters to work on my cases. Within eight months I would meet this lunatic face-to-face.

Part 3 coming soon.

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8 February, 2008 The Face Mask Murders, Part One- Dead Head on the Beach

It was a such a lovely day. The sunset temperature was perfect, as one might expect of San Diego, California, a place where it is said that God keeps a summer home. Any couple on the planet would love to stroll on the beaches of San Diego at such golden times. But when William and Maria Cassons took their shoeless walk there one late afternoon, rolling up in the froth on the beach beside them was not a surfer dude, an ornate shell or some tossed seaweed.

“What is THAT?” Maria gasped.

“I ... I don’t know?” William answered.

In a crouch, they timidly stepped over to it.

“It looks...like a head? Is it a head?”

“Its a head! A skull!”

They both looked around, as one is want to do under such times, then William grabbed Maria’s hand and pulled her off the beach. They ran and ran until they found an open snack shop.

“We need to call the police! Call the police!” William breathlessly insisted to Cameron Delone, the proprietor. “There is a dead head on the beach.”

Fact of business is this was a head, a fresh head more or less, but more precisely one whose flesh and internal parts were half gone. Not a striped-clean skull per say. The skull must have been used like an underwater, ice cream bowl for various sea life to come a’ scooting in and around and take delicious nibbles of this brain part or that eyeball.

Within an hour one of the rotating San Diego homicide detectives squads showed up on the beach and conferred with the patrolmen standing guard. Other men took some pictures, took measurements, but the crime scene “CSI” action we see today was not quite the norm for 1981, progressive California or otherwise. In other words, no one was collecting things like DNA samples. And, an open public beach is just not the greatest of crime scenes to work.

Still, veteran Homicide Detective Dale Borlan had some hunches. He knelt in the sand by the head and commented,” looks like the fish ate his face off first.”

Great guess. Great instinct from a generally messy looking, lopped-off head. Their job would be to identify this head, eliminate the slim chance of a decapitation accident somewhere (stranger things have happened) and presumably find a killer who took time to cut said cranian from somebody’s torso. But they would have to hurry because their rotating team “caught/was-assigned” several murder cases a month. Dead head on a beach. Might make a great song title for a Jimmy Buffet/ Grateful Dead collaberation, but this was not music to this homicide team's ears.

Me? A few thousand miles away. I was busy minding my own beeswax working a variety of criminal investigations in the heart of Texas-land. It's a beach-less place and if you want my honest opinion, God keeps no summer home here and just kinda' passes through on occasion. I would catch about 20 to 30 new cases of all types each month, and still juggle older, unsolved ones from prior months.

And from one of these older cases, I was hunting a very strange, violent Texas criminal...

Part two coming soon.

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4 February, 2008: Faith, Hope, Luck and the Whole Enchilada

Hope is not a strategy. At least that is what many military and police tacticians say. Yet, these same experts will often also announce that sometimes to win and survive you have to be lucky - have an element of fate or luck on your side to come out on top. I have heard this luck angle from hard core, vet, shooting instructors all the way up to General George S. Patton. Hope. Luck. Then should one hope for a little luck? In which case, somebody is not connecting the dots when they open their mouths. Will you hope to have some faith in your luck coming through? Just like in the Superbowl, you have to play well enough to get there, but then, there in the game, there seems also to be some kind of magic, some kind of momentum at play? Call it a break?

Faith and hope are apparently pretty important to your mental and physical condition, that is if you are lucky, because it doesn't always work out. All the chemo therapy, all the prayers, alternative medicines, trinkets and village voodoo don't always..."take." Why does it sometimes? Even if it just fools us? Read these reviews on two fairly new books, if they catch your fancy, I really suggest you read the books.

Snake Oil Science: Click here

The Cure Within: The History of Mind-Body Medicine: Click here

The Cure Within leaves you with a sense of mystery. The Snake Oil Science book sort of explains the mystery. In fact, it explains a varied host of human behaviors and will help you make better decisions about every aspect of your life and why others make the choices they make! Yes! It is like a course in human logic. For one example, It explains about five different, clinically-proven ways an acupuncturist may help you, that has nothing to do with the physical act of sticking needles in you.

You know, understanding the miracles of the brain, of life - just simply understanding the mechanics of them - doesn't make them any less of a miracle. We are all going to get a lot smarter a lot faster these upcoming years, but the whole enchilada is still quite miraculous.

Adios amigos, Hock

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1 February, 2008: Gun Arm Grappling

Colonel Jeff Cooper made some written observations about gun fighting, some decades ago. He noted that, try if we must, we cannot really tell what most people do in a gunfight because so few instances were ever filmed for us to study. But times have indeed changed. Today we live in a world of dashboard cams – the movie cameras mounted on squad cars to record every encounter - at least those in the front view of the car. Plus with the advent of “CCTV” closed circuit television, the insides and outsides of stores, restaurants, bars, sporting events, streets and even nannies are often under the watchful eye of some camera lens, somewhere.

As we now dwell in the second half, of the first decade of the 21 st century, we discover we now have a plethora of films on fights, stabbing, crimes and shootings to look at. They are plastered on the news, the you-tube, blue-tube and zoo-tube of the internet.

When we watch these shootings, we actually see what our interview-research has already taught us, that a large percentage of gun violence occurs close up, or at very least it frequently starts very close up and may work out from there. This means that when an officer draws a weapon and when a criminal draws a weapon, these actions are very often in close quarters or more precisely, in lunge-and-reach of each other.

Many of these films cover police fights and shootings. In a preponderance of these films I usually see officers doing two things when a fight breaks out. Despite the fact that the are often being severely beaten, they reach for the duty belt, for a pistol, for spray, a TASER, a radio, whatever and they often can't get to it because they are busy fending off the advances of their adversary. Second, they seem to have a second nature instinct to run for their squad car, as if somehow by touching it they achieve some level of safety. "Ollie-ollie-oven free!" We know the psychological reasons behind this and we are drummed into the “call for help first ” response. Sadly, we usually get drummed in the process by the suspect.

The confrontation calls for fighting with empty hand skills first, even to the point of interrupting the criminal's quick draw if possible, or creating the time and space to properly draw one's own weapon. Either way when close together, the officer and the criminal engage in what I call “Gun Arm Grappling.”

Gun arm grappling means fighting and moving in a manner that allows you to draw a weapon from your belt, and this could be any weapon because the arm and hand clutching process for most of them are similar. Then using the weapon inside the chaotic, painful buzz saw of the fight. Then following up with next probable events. Too, this means thwarting the quick draw process of the enemy as he pulls weapons from his primary, secondary and tertiarycarry sites. All this standing, and on the ground.

Citizens and detectives do not carry the same volume of weapons as the uniformed police and military do. Instead, they might be reaching for a concealed carry pistol or folding knife, and facing the same buzz saw problems.

I often will teach aspects from my Gun Arm Grappling Module of my Police Judo program in regular seminars. We will use extremely safe, firing replica pistols, or dull, knife replicas and experiment with various methods to produce the high percentage, successful results dedicated for your strength, size and skill. My Police Judo program is like all my courses in that they are about developing your own individual, personal, problem-solving, and not generic, cookie-cutter, “one-size fits” all solutions.

Adios mi amigos - Hock

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Email Hock at Hock.Hochheim@sbcglobal.net

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