A few weeks ago, I had looked up something on Google, ran across the Valerie Percy murder and promptly got submerged in the mystery (so much that I don’t remember what I was checking out first).
I was 12 during the summer/fall of 1966, and well remember the chill horror of the Chicago student nurse murders and then, the murder of Valerie Percy. For those of my age then, I think it was the first time we actually realized that our homes were not the safe havens we thought.
There is so much that is baffling about the Percy murder. If there were footprints in the dew from the murderer leaving the house, why was there none leading up to the house? I was struck by the fact that the killer went down into the water—not only could he ditch the bayonet, but, had the police thought to use tracking dogs, it would have been difficult or likely impossible to track the culprit. That would have been a very smart choice if the killer were from the neighborhood and had not used a car. (Yes, I’m another who believes Thoreson is likely the killer.) Unfortunately, the police didn’t call in tracking dogs for the Percy crime or the attempted break in in the neighborhood the night before.
I do wish there were floor plans available for both floors of the Percy house, as it is so difficult to visualize the path of the killer past the other kids’ bedrooms, or the distances involved.