IL IL - Valerie Percy, 21, Kenilworth, 18 September 1966

[MaryLiz]

Anyone else notice that the story of the purported killer in this case, and Mrs. Percy's purported comment that there was some resemblance to the Bubes' sketch suspect only he had "bushier hair," is a carbon copy of the story that inspired the Fugitive?

From Wikipedia:

The Fugitive (TV series)

Inspirations and influence

The series was conceived by Roy Huggins and produced by Quinn Martin. It is popularly believed that the series was based in part on the real-life story of Sam Sheppard, an Ohio doctor accused of murdering his wife. Although convicted and imprisoned, Sheppard claimed that his wife had been murdered by a "bushy-haired man". Huggins denied basing the series on Sheppard.

That's intriguing. The Fugitive was on TV in 1966. It wasn't on that night. But in an interesting side note, which I don't remember reading before, the Hitchcock film Psycho was supposed to run on CBS a few nights after Valerie was murdered. They postponed the broadcast of the movie and said they would run it at a later date, but they never did. I apologize if that was posted on this thread previously and I forgot about it. I didn't have time to go through the whole thread right now. But I thought that was kind of interesting.

snip...

CBS planned to broadcast Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film Psycho in September of 1966. Following the tragic murder of Valerie Jeanne Percy just days before the movie was set to air, the network postponed the broadcast due to concerned Midwestern affiliates. Although the network insisted it would eventually show the movie, which it had already edited for content, it never did.

http://www.tvobscurities.com/articles/cbs_and_psycho.php

 

[Winward1]

Yes, I know it changed CBS' programming. Even before the Fugitive was on, the story that supposedly inspired it was likely the most notorious homicide case of the 50s in the US. So it's hard to believe the Percy's wouldn't have known about it, nor anyone else.

 

[MaryLiz]

Yes, I know it changed CBS' programming. Even before the Fugitive was on, the story that supposedly inspired it was likely the most notorious homicide case of the 50s in the US. So it's hard to believe the Percy's wouldn't have known about it, nor anyone else.

Oh I agree, I'm sure they knew about it. I kind of got sidetracked looking up to see exactly what years The Fugitive ran on TV and what was on at the time of Valerie's murder.

The Sheppard case received extraordinary press coverage for the time. But it wasn't just in the 50s. His retrial was actually in 1966 when he was acquitted. It probably wasn't the circus-like atmosphere that his first trial was in 1954, but it still got tremendous press coverage. I looked up his case on Wikipedia just to see the timelines again. Sheppard was actually arraigned on September 8, 1966, just 10 days before Valerie's murder. It could have actually been on Mrs. Percy's mind because I think every single article that was ever written about the Sheppard case from the very beginning mentioned the bushy-haired man.

 

[Winward1]

Here's another tidbit I noticed. There's a passage in a book called Percy of Illinois that says that the first cop who arrived at the scene called for an ambulance.

Isn't that sort of weird? I mean, when does the cop arrive and call for an ambulance? Wouldn't one of the Percy's call an ambulance?

 

[Bargle]

Perhaps not, since Dr. Hohf had already told them Valerie was dead.

 

[Winward1]

What I'm wondering is, okay, if your house is invaded by an intruder, and one of your kids is seriously injured by said intruder, and you call the police, and then a neighbor who's a doctor to attended to your kid first, wouldn't you then call an ambulance?

I mean, sure, the doctor is first 'cause he's close but then... if the doctor can stabilize the kid you're going to want paramedics there, eh? And it's going to take the doctor a few minutes to get over to your place so you'd call for an ambulance, too?

Then there are differing accounts. There's nothing in any of the newspaper stories, far as I know, about an ambulance being called or paramedics being on the scene.

But in the Percy book that was published in '68, much of what apparently was told to the book writer by Mr. Percy himself, it actually says an ambulance was called and Mr. Hohf is only referred to once in passing, not even by his name:

From "Percy of Illinois:"

"When he got the Kenilworth police station, he gave a brief account of what had happened and then hung up. He called a doctor who lived nearby and a Christian Science practitioner."

I find this weird. At the least it seems a deliberate downplaying of a learned man who was by all accounts one of the first people on the scene, and at worst a partial fabrication of the truth (i.e. in reality an ambulance was never summoned and never arrived.)

So, Percy called someone from his church but no ambulance. Then, according to the same book the first COP to arrive (an officer by the name of Wolf) called an ambulance. But that is not reported, far's I know, anywhere else:

12 / CHARLES PERCY OF ILLINOIS

Wolf was taken upstairs to Valerie s room. He bent over the girl and made a quick examination. He thought, he said later, he had detected "a faint pulse," and immediately called for a doctor and ambulance as well as for more help. But it had been too late from the outset. Valerie, mercifully, had been all but unconscious from the time the killer had struck her on the head the first time, and no doctor, then or later, could have saved her.



Of course, this book seems pretty crappy. The doctor, ostensibly, had already been called for by Percy.

 

[Bargle]

Yeah, a confusing mess. I note that the newspaper accounts have Mrs. Percy being the one that thought she detected a faint pulse.. Calling Dr. Hohf, him pronouncing her dead, then the first policeman on the scene calling an ambulance makes a more likely scenario, but we don't really know, since there has been no trial. When I get home tonight, I'll see if I can find the article from the inquest and see if it tells anything about this.

 

[Winward1]

Another thought; if I recall correctly, reports said some sort of tool was used to cut through a screen door and then a glass cutter used to cut through a glass door to gain entry.

So, if we're to believe this story, the killer used two tools to gain entry, and also had a flashlight Mrs. Percy saw him with. And he also had a murder weapon.

In other words, if one counts the murder weapon, and it was only one weapon, the killer apparently entered the house with no less than four separate tools, killed someone using massive violence, a person who for at least a short time fought back, and then the killer escaped under an alarm system's wail after having been seen at the scene of the crime and did all of the above without so much as dropping a tool, not in Valerie's room, not elsewhere in the house, and not at nearby properties.

He successfully maneuvered in and out of an ostensibly unfamiliar house in the dark or near dark, and made a hasty retreat while carrying enough tools to fill a small toolbox, and his hands were likely covered with blood. Sounds pretty unbelievable to me. As the first anniversary of this crime approached the Chicago Daily News called this the unbelievable crime.

 

[Bargle]

Yeah, a confusing mess. I note that the newspaper accounts have Mrs. Percy being the one that thought she detected a faint pulse.. Calling Dr. Hohf, him pronouncing her dead, then the first policeman on the scene calling an ambulance makes a more likely scenario, but we don't really know, since there has been no trial. When I get home tonight, I'll see if I can find the article from the inquest and see if it tells anything about this.

No luck. There's nothing about that portion of the night's events in the articles.
Sorry about the delay in posting this. My power and cable were knocked out by the storm Monday afternoon.

 

[Winward1]

Indeed, I haven't found any other mention of an ambulance save in the story that was written the following year, ostensibly the info for it provided by Chuck Percy. This would seem to indicate that an ambulance wasn't called, though why he would say one was called later is peculiar. If one wasn't called it indicates they knew she was gone before they called Hohf.

 

[sparky134]

I would like to see the sketch of the intruder ,to see if it resembles, richard macek.

 

[Winward1]

A sketch was never made.

 

[Bargle]

There is a copy of the Bubes assault sketch back in post #50 of this thread.

 

[AKWILKS]

This is the first Bubes sketch, the face seems real narrow. It is next to a picture of Ted Kaczynski, whose family home in Illinois was minutes away from the Percy home.

]

This is the second version of the Bubes sketch, with a picture of Ted K. In the middle is the second sketch as it appeared in the paper at the time of the Percy murder. Given that the suspect was seen only very briefly and in the dark, and as the face seemed narrow beyond belief, as an experiment I widened this image by 18%. Beneath it is a sketch of the suspect in the Betsy Aardsma case with two pictures of Ted Kaczynski.

 

[Winward1]

Anyone know when control of this crime scene changed over from KPD to Chicago PD?

 

[Winward1]

As someone has posted in another thread, this isn't the only notorious case Ted K. has been a part of in theory:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/us/20tylenol.html?_r=1&hp

 

[Winward1]

After the winter of building, what the former Percy property looks like now. The bluff has been removed.

 

[Bargle]

Holey smoke, that place is gonna be huge.

 

[Winward1]

I was told 25,000 sq. st. Insane.

 

[Luckymanuh]

A HOUSE!!! 25,000sq foot!!??