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Jan 22 '24 rbbm
www.masslive.com
Shown here is a view of the crime scene after police discovered Gerhard Dorlich's dead body in Chicopee in 1973.Courtesy photo
Police recovered this knife from the scene where Gerhard Dorlich was slain in Chicopee on Sept. 26, 1973. His case remains unsolved.Courtesy photo
''The German immigrant who worked at a Chicopee manufacturing plant was known as an affable guy who frequented local watering holes with fistfuls of cash he used to buy rounds of drinks and pizza for other patrons, according to investigators with the Unresolved Cases Unit.
His generosity may have gotten him killed, they believe. Dorlich was stabbed to death while on foot, on his way home to his apartment on Simard Drive.
“It seems he was working, went out with his buddies to a local bar, Don’s Den, and grabbed a pizza on the way home,” said Massachusetts State Trooper Thomas Sullivan, cold case investigator in Hampden County.
After all this time, police have preserved the murder weapon: an unusual-looking knife left at the scene. That’s a bonus for contemporary investigators.
Dorlich was divorced. He had two sons who now live in Germany, Sullivan said.
Police believe Gorlich was surprised by his attacker. They found him with a pocket turned inside-out and empty of cash, after he had been seen earlier buying his usual rounds and pizza with a wad of money.
In this case, police have revisited old witnesses with traditional gumshoe work: door-knocking and the like. Original witnesses provided a vague description of Gorlich’s alleged attacker — late 20s, about 5′11″ with a slim build and wearing a button-down shirt.
Multiple people saw Gorlich carrying a pizza box home. Some witnesses saw a man trailing him. Another couple saw a man crouching over his body''
A look at cold cases Hampden County prosecutors hope to solve with DNA advances
Mothers stabbed and strangled, an abandoned newborn and decades-old sexual assaults.
Shown here is a view of the crime scene after police discovered Gerhard Dorlich's dead body in Chicopee in 1973.Courtesy photo
Police recovered this knife from the scene where Gerhard Dorlich was slain in Chicopee on Sept. 26, 1973. His case remains unsolved.Courtesy photo
''The German immigrant who worked at a Chicopee manufacturing plant was known as an affable guy who frequented local watering holes with fistfuls of cash he used to buy rounds of drinks and pizza for other patrons, according to investigators with the Unresolved Cases Unit.
His generosity may have gotten him killed, they believe. Dorlich was stabbed to death while on foot, on his way home to his apartment on Simard Drive.
“It seems he was working, went out with his buddies to a local bar, Don’s Den, and grabbed a pizza on the way home,” said Massachusetts State Trooper Thomas Sullivan, cold case investigator in Hampden County.
After all this time, police have preserved the murder weapon: an unusual-looking knife left at the scene. That’s a bonus for contemporary investigators.
Dorlich was divorced. He had two sons who now live in Germany, Sullivan said.
Police believe Gorlich was surprised by his attacker. They found him with a pocket turned inside-out and empty of cash, after he had been seen earlier buying his usual rounds and pizza with a wad of money.
In this case, police have revisited old witnesses with traditional gumshoe work: door-knocking and the like. Original witnesses provided a vague description of Gorlich’s alleged attacker — late 20s, about 5′11″ with a slim build and wearing a button-down shirt.
Multiple people saw Gorlich carrying a pizza box home. Some witnesses saw a man trailing him. Another couple saw a man crouching over his body''
