William Heirens
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William George Heirens (1928 [1] - ) is an American criminal who confessed to three murders in 1946. Though the term "serial killer" had not been coined in 1946, Hierens would likely be classified as a serial killer by the FBI's definition. Heirens has also been called The Lipstick Killer due to a notorious message scrawled in lipstick at a crime scene.
Though he remains imprisoned, Heirens has recanted his confession, and claimed that the false confession was due to his being a victim of coercive interrogation and police brutality. [2]
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[edit] Biography
Heirens grew up in Lincolnwood, the suburbs of Chicago.
At the age of 11, Heirens claimed to have witnessed a couple making love. He claimed to have told his mother, who then told him that all sex was dirty, and would lead to diseases. While kissing a girlfriend he claimed to have burst into tears, and proceeded to vomit in the presence of this girl.
At 13 years old, Heirens was arrested for carrying a loaded gun. A subsequent search of the Heirens’ home discovered more weapons hidden a refrigerator and in the loft. Heirens admitted to a string of burglaries and was sent to a the Gibault School for wayward boys for several months. He claimed that he rarely stole for material or financial gain, and instead burglarized due to curiosity, as a tension release, and for the sense of excitement it gave him.
Not long after his release, Heirens was again arrested for burglary; this time he was sentenced to three years at St. Bede's Academy, operated by Benedictine Monks. Now well-behaved, Heirens stood out as an exceptional student, and, due to his good test scores, was enrolled at the University of Chicago upon his release from St. Bede’s at 16 years old.
Not long after his release, however, Heirens resumed his serial burglary, even as he studied electrical engineering.
[edit] The Killings
[edit] Josephine Ross
On June 5, 1945, 43-year-old divorcee Josephine Ross was found dead in her apartment; she had been repeatedly stabbed, and her head was wrapped in a dress. She was presumed to have surprised an intruder (it looked as if someone had torn through the residence’s closets and drawers), who then killed her.
Ross’s fiancé had an alibi, and police had no other suspects. They looked for a dark-complexioned man who was reported loitering at the apartment, but were unable to identify or locate him.
[edit] Francis Brown
About 9.00 a.m. on December 11, 1945, Francis Brown was discovered stabbed to death in her Chicago apartment after a cleaning woman heard a radio playing loud and noted Brown’s door partly open. Brown, too, had been savagely stabbed, and authorities thought that a burglar had been discovered or interrupted.
Someone had written a message in lipstick on the wall of Brown’s apartment:
- For heavens [sic]
- sake catch me
- before I kill more
- I cannot control myself. [3]
[edit] Susan Dengan
On January 7, 1946, 6-year-old Suzanne Degnan was discovered missing from her bedroom. After searching the home and not finding the girl, her family called police.
Her seeming kidnapping earned significant publicity, and police vowed to find whoever was responsible. Police found a ladder outside the girl’s window, and also discovered a ransom note which had been overlooked by the panicked family. The note read:
On the reverse of the note was written,
- Burn this for her safty [sic]. [5]
Police questioned Dengan family neighbors, but no one had seen anything unusual. Someone telephoned police anonymously, suggesting that police look in the sewers near the Dengan home. Police did, and discovered the young girl’s body, dismembered. Searches uncovered a wash basin in a nearby apartment building basement that seemed to have been where Dengan was dismembered.
The publicity was enormous, and there was widespread condemnation of the crime. Police questioned hundreds of people, and gave polygraph exams to about 170. On several occasions, authorities claimed to have captured the killer, but were embarrassed when the cases proved baseless and the suspects were released.
Among the suspects named as responsible for the murder was was 65-year-old Hector Verburgh, the janitor at the building where Dengan was dismembered. Police repeatedly beat and berated Verburgh, who steadfastly denied any wrongdoing. Released after two days, he sued the city for his mistreatment, and was later awarded $20,000 (more than $200,000 in 2005 dollars, according to the United States Consumer Price Index).
[edit] Arrest and questioning of Heirens
On June 26, 1946, Heirens was arrested on attempted burglary charges when someone saw him breaking into an apartment. He fled, but two police officers chased him. When trapped, Heirens brandished a revolver, resulting in a scuffle that stopped only when an off-duty policeman dropped a flowerpot on Heirens’s head, rendering him unconscious.
While in custody, police grew suspicious of him for the killings: the victims had all seemingly surprised an intruder, and Heirens had a long history of burglary. He was interrogated for several days, and claimed that he was beaten and abused by police.
Psychiatrists gave Heirens sodium pentathol, a drug then believed to be a "truth serum." Under the influence of the drug, authorities claimed, Heirens spoke of a multiple personality named "George Murman", who had actually committed the murders. Heirens claimed that he recalled little of the drug-induced interrogation.
While handwriting analysts did not definitely link Heirens’s handwriting to the "Lipstick Message", police claimed that Heirens’s fingerprints matched a print discovered at the scene of the Ross murder.
On his fifth day in custody, Heirens was given a lumbar puncture (popularlay called a "spinal tap") without anesthesia. Given only a few minutes to recover (instead of the usual several hours given to anesthetized patients), Heirens was driven to police headquarters for a polygraph, but he was in such obvious pain that the lie detector was rescheduled for several days later.
When the polygraph was administered, authorities announced that the results were “inconclusive.” However, later analysis by polygraph experts John E. Reid and Fred E. Inbau concluded that the polygraph results supported Heirens’s claims of innocence.[6]
[edit] Heirens’s Confession
Before the polygraph exam, Heirens spoke to Captain Michael Ahern, one of the few Chicago police officers who had shown him any kindness. With State's Attorney William Tuohy and a stenographer at hand, Heirens offered an indirect confession, claiming that his alter-ego of "George Murman" might have been responsible for the crimes.
Authorities were skeptical of Heirens’s claims and suspected that he was laying the groundwork for an insanity defense, but the confession earned widespread publicity.
Police searches of Heirens’s residence found other items that earned publicity, notably a copy of Psychopathia Sexualis (Kraft-Ebbing’s famous study of sexual deviancies, including sexual homicides and dismemberments), and a stolen medical kit. Heirens claimed that the kit was used to alter stolen savings bonds, and police announced that the medical instruments could not be linked to the murders, but the headlines nonetheless announced the damning discovery of the "disection kit."
During the extensive questioning, the Chicago Tribune ran a sensational, yet entirely phony Heirens “confession” that was actually written by staff reporter George Wright.
[edit] Guilty Plea
Following the advice of his lawyers, Heirens plead guilty to three murders, in exchange for one term of life imprisonment and avoiding capital punishment. On July 30, 1946, Heirens appeared in court for his formal confession. To everyone’s surprise, he responded with ignorance to nearly every question asked of him.
Angered, officials changed the punishment to three life terms, and gave Heirens one more chance to confess in open court. He took full responsibility for the three murders on August 7, 1946, and on September 4, was formally sentenced to three life terms.
[edit] Afterwards
On September 5, 1946, Heirens tried to hang himself in his prison cell. He was discovered before he died.
Heirens was a well-behaved prisoner. He continued his studies, and, in 1972 was the first state prisoner in Illinois history to earn a college degree.[7] He tutored many other prisoners who were persuing their educations, and was eventually transferred to a minimum security facility, where he has held various clerical jobs.
[edit] Claims of Innocence
Some observers have long questioned whether Heirens was actually guilty of the crimes he confessed to committing. Within days of his confession in open court, Heirens denied any responsibility. Mary Jane Blanchard, daughter of murder victim Josephine Ross, was one of the first dissenters, being quoted in 1946 as saying:
- I cannot believe that young Heirens murdered my mother. He just does not fit into the picture of my mother's death … I have looked at all the things Heirens stole and there was nothing of my mother's things among them.[8]
In 1996, FBI handwriting analyst David Grimes declared that Heirens’s known handwriting did not match either the Dengan ransom note or the infamous "Lipstick Message."[9]
In 2002, Lawrence C. Marshall, et al., filed a petition on Heirens' behalf seeking clemency.[10] They cited not only strong doubts about Heirens' guilt, but also his exemplary behavior in prison. The appeal was eventually denied.
[edit] Other Suspects
After the Dengan murder, but before Heirens became a suspect, Chicago police interrogated 42-year-old Richard Russell Thomas, a drifter passing through the city. Police officials in Thomas’s hometown of Phoenix, Arizona noted strong similarities between the handwritten Dengan ransom note and Thomas’s handwriting, and suggested that Chicago police investigate Thomas. [11]
Upon being questioned, Thomas confessed to the crime, but he was released from custody after Heirens became the prime suspect. Others contend that Thomas was a strong suspect, writing,
- Thomas previously had been convicted of an attempted extortion — with a ransom note that threatened the kidnaping [sic] of a little girl. At the time he confessed to the Degnan crime, he was awaiting sentencing for molesting one of his own children.[12]
Thomas died in 1974.
[edit] References
- ^ Moyer, Ashley, et al., "William Heirens, ‘The Lipstick Killer’" Radford University Department of Psychology URL accessed January 29, 2007
- ^ Kennedy, Dolores "Bill Heirens Asks For Help So He Won't Die In Prison For Another's Crime." URL accessed January 29, 2007
- ^ Geringer, Joseph,"William Heirens: Lipstick Killer or Legal Scapegoat? Chapter 2: The Atrocities" URL accessed Jan 29, 2007
- ^ Geringer, Joseph, "William Heirens: Lipstick Killer or Legal Scapegoat? Chapter 2: The Atrocities" URL accessed Jan 29, 2007
- ^ Geringer, Joseph, "William Heirens: Lipstick Killer or Legal Scapegoat? Chapter 2: The Atrocities" URL accessed Jan 29, 2007
- ^ Geringer, Joseph, "William Heirens: Lipstick Killer or Legal Scapegoat? Chapter 4: Psychoses, Fingerprints and Truth" URL accessed January 29, 2007
- ^ http://www.angelfire.com/wa/laidlaw/zAandE2004july.html A&E television listings for July, 2004] URL accessed January 29, 2007
- ^ Geringer, Joseph, "William Heirens: Lipstick Killer or Legal Scapegoat? Chapter 6: Confession" URL accessed January 29, 2007
- ^ Geringer, Joseph, "William Heirens: Lipstick Killer or Legal Scapegoat? Chapter 7: Model Prisoner" URL accessed January 29, 2007
- ^ Marshall, Lawrence C., et al., Amended Petition for Executive Clemency URL accessed January 30, 2007
- ^ Geringer, Joseph, "William Heirens: Lipstick Killer or Legal Scapegoat? Chapter 7: Model Prisoner" URL accessed January 29, 2007
- ^ http://www.law.northwestern.edu/depts/clinic/wrongful/documents/HeirensHistory.htm Warden, Rob, Center on Wrongful Convictions, William Heirens: Background] from Northwestern University] URL accessed January 29, 2007
