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Irvin killing spree in 1950s
had area in fear |
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The Tri-State was in fear
during the Christmas season of 1954.
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Residents were buying handguns and doors were locked in Vanderburgh, Posey and Gibson counties in Indiana and across the Ohio River in Henderson County, Ky.
Before the rampage ran its course, Leslie Irvin shot and killed six people and left an intended seventh victim blind and crippled. He became the object of a nationwide manhunt after an escape from jail and a flight to San Francisco. At large for 22 days, he reportedly was seen everywhere in the country.
His trial was held in the Gibson County courthouse ended in a conviction and a sentence to the electric chair. After years of appeals, in 1961 the U.S. Supreme Court, would reverse his first conviction and death sentence and wrote, in a landmark decision, new rules guaranteeing a citizen's right to a trial free of "so huge a wave of public passion" created by media coverage. It was a classic case where a free press and a person's right to a fair trial can be in conflict.
Irvin had four dates with Indiana's electric chair and dodged them all, spending the major part of his life in the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City until his death on Nov. 9, 1983. Leslie Irvin, a 30-year-old burglar-murderer branded a "mad dog killer" by Gibson county prosecuting attorney Loren McGregor in his closing statement.
His first victim was Mrs. Mary Holland, a 33-year-old expectant mother. She and her husband, Charles "Doc" Holland, owned and operated a liquor store on Bellemeade Avenue. Mrs. Holland was found dead in the stores restroom the night of December 2, 1954, from a single shot in the head. Her hands were tied behind her back.
On December 23, Wesley Kerr, 29, was found shot to death in a U.S. 41 North gasoline station where he worked alone during the early morning hours. His body was in the restroom, hands tied behind his back, a single bullet wound in his head. Police found a spent slug, believed to be from a .38-caliber revolver. The station's cash register was open and empty, the night's receipts showing $68.11.
Police surmised the same gunman had killed Mrs.
Holland.
Rewards for the capture of this criminal began cropping up, with local newspapers offering $1,000. Almost three months passed and the area was returning to normal when the killer surfaced on March 21, 1955. Wilhelmina Sailer, a 47-year-old housewife, was shot to death in her Posey County farm home near Mount Vernon, Ind. Her 7-year-old son, John Ray, discovered her when he returned by bus from school shortly after noon. Her husband arrived a few minutes later. Mrs. Sailer's hands were bound behind her with a single shot to the head.
A week later on March 28 a Henderson County, Ky., farmer Goebel Duncan and two other family members were killed, all by single shots through their heads. His wife, Mamie, survived a similar wound but was blinded and in critical condition. She awoke two days later but the trauma had erased her memory of the tragic event. She would later sit on the front row, everyday at the killer's trial in Gibson County. The Duncan's 2-year-old granddaughter, Shirley Faye was spared. "I like kids," the killer later told police. Duncan's son, Raymond, was killed, as was a daughter-in-law, Elizabeth, married to another son. The Duncan women were discovered by a family member in adjoining rooms of the farmhouse; the bodies of the men were found in a muddy swamp four miles away. The multiple murders of the Goebel Duncan family in Henderson County, Ky., provided police with their first solid clues in their efforts to discover the identity of the execution style killer terrorizing the Tri-State. A neighbor of the Duncans, John Ralph Gaines told detectives he noticed Raymond and Goebel Duncan standing in Raymond's front yard talking with "one or two men" around 10 a.m. on March 28, 1955, the day of their deaths. He said he saw nothing suspicious and drove on. He did notice a dark vehicle with a battered left side and an Indiana license plate parked nearby. Three Sturgis, Ky., residents - Mrs. Dan Griffin, her grandson, Thomas Griffin, and his sister, Mrs. Virginia Watson, were on their way to Evansville when they were involved in a minor accident around 9:40 a.m. on the day of the Duncan deaths. Since they were in a hurry to get to Evansville, Mrs. Griffin said, they gave the driver $5 for repairs and drove on. She said the man turned around and followed them for about a mile and a half before turning off into the Duncan driveway.
The following day, T. Walters of Corydon, Kentucky., told police officers he passed the Duncan men near the spot on the Trigg-Turner Road where their bodies were found. This was around 10 a.m. Police now had a general description of the suspected killer and his car.
It till took a stroke of luck from a group of youngsters out on a lark to apprehend Leslie Irvin. Vanderburgh County Sheriff Frank McDonald Sr., a future Evansville mayor, had formed a Junior Sheriff Patrol, and sent word to them to report anything suspicious in their neighborhoods. There had been a series of burglaries in the St. Joseph area northwest of Evansville, but no arrests were made. On March 30, two days after the Duncan murders, eight youths in the Vienna Road area decided to go out and look over the drilling of a new oil well. As they packed themselves into the car of Bill Williams, 18, they noticed another car parked near some woods about 150 yards away. They joked about it "being the murderer," one said later. They pulled near the car, now moving, and one of the youths leaned out a window and shouted: "Hey, we're investigators." The black vehicle sped away as one of the youths jotted down the license number, EL 351, of the Indiana
plate.
On April 1, 1955, two youngsters were reading a story in an area paper that mentioned a vehicle similar to the one their group had seen in northwestern Vanderburgh County. Allen Peerman brought the clipping home and showed it to his mother. She promptly contacted the sheriff's office. A check of the license plate number the youths had recorded turned up under the name of Leslie Irvin, who was on parole from the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City after serving nine years for a burglary in Indianapolis.
Irvin was arrested on April 8 at the F.B. Culley power plant near Yankeetown in Warrick County. He worked there as a steam-pipe insulator, earning $1.90 per hour, a decent wage for that decade. Irvin offered no resistance. After questioning Irvin, he didn't reveal his identity until Monday, although the news media believed a suspect had been apprehended. On April 15, police said Irvin confessed to 24 burglaries in four Southern Indiana counties, stealing guns believed to have been used in area killings. Irvin was charged with four murders and police he admitted to two more. A wallet found on Irvin was believed to be that of slaying victim Wesley Kerr. It contained $18.
Area policemen who had known Irvin since childhood recalled him setting fire to Bosse High School several times at the age 15 just for the thrill of it.
A grand jury in Henderson, Kentucky, convened on May 1 and indicted Irvin the following day on three counts of murder for the slayings of Goebel Duncan family. Kentucky sought his extradition but Indiana officials blocked it. On May 10, Vanderburgh Circuit Judge Ollie C. Reeves granted Irvin a change of venue to Gibson County, a move sought by public defender Robert Hayes "on account of local prejudice." Officials decided he would be tried first for Kerr's slaying. After the trial, the electric chair was recommended for Irvin. The Leslie Irvin murder case had barely reached the Gibson County Courthouse in Princeton, Indiana, when defense attorneys asked that it be moved back to Evansville. The defense thought the larger Vanderburgh County population would more likely yield an impartial jury. On May 11, 1955, Gibson Circuit Judge A. Dale Eby overruled the motion.
The next day, Irvin made his first appearance in the Gibson County court, handcuffed, with a long, leash-like chain linking him to Gibson County Sheriff Earl Hollen, lending credence to his "Mad Dog" image. On May 18, Eby appointed Evansville attorney Ted Lockyear Jr. to defend Irvin. A day later, James D. Lopp Sr., also an Evansville lawyer, was appointed to the defense team. Proceedings resumed on November 15 with jury selection which proved to be a monumental and tedious task. It required three weeks with more than 355 prospects being interviewed.
Court reporter Lucille Ford estimated she filled 33 stenographic pads with 247,000 words in shorthand, including mumbles and nods of heads.
On December 7, an all-male jury of 12 was selected. Vanderburgh County Prosecutor Paul Wever, assisted by Howard Sandusky and Gibson County Prosecutor Loren McGregor, handled the state's case and opened the trial announcing they would seek the death penalty. After more than five weeks, the trial drew to a close. On December 20, 1955, the jury, after 90 minutes of deliberations, decided Irvin was guilty and recommended that he be executed in the electric chair. Irvin's date with death was scheduled for June 12.Leslie Irvin, the chief suspect in the slayings of six people, was confined in what lawmen considered an escape-proof jail in Princeton, Ind., 25 miles north of Evansville. He was awaiting a transfer to the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. A few days away from making this trip, Irvin shocked his captors and the public by making his way through three locked doors and disappearing into a snowy night on January 21. His escape, like his crimes, arrest and trial, dominated the newspaper front page for days. Irvin later told Courier reporter Joe Aaron, who covered his crime spree and trial, that he used a trial-and-error method of making 50 keys to finally find two that would open his way to freedom. He said he made them from paperback novel covers, tin foil and glue.
Police posted 24-hour guards around the homes of Prosecutor Paul Wever, his assistant, Howard Sandusky, along with those of Evansville Chief of Detectives Dan Hudson and Irvin's mother, Alice.
Irvin was making his way to Las Vegas, Los Angeles and finally to San Francisco, when the chase ended on February 9. Wearing a snappy sport shirt and new suit, condemned murderer Leslie Irvin was arrested Feb. 9, 1956, in a downtown San Francisco pawnshop. Two officers who made the arrest admitted they had no idea who he was. Irvin had traveled more than 2,000 miles in 20 days, often one step ahead of police. When arrested, he told San Francisco police; "I'm Leslie Irvin and I'm wanted in Indiana for six murders. I've been convicted of one and I'm not guilty of any." On Friday night, February 11, Gibson County Sheriff Earl Hollen and Indiana State Police Lt. Willard Walls and Detective Sgt. W.W. Cornett arrived in San Francisco to return Irvin to Indiana, unaware Irvin planned to fight extradition. Irvin was arraigned in San Francisco Municipal Court on a fugitive charge and was awarded a continuance until the following Tuesday, giving him time to talk to his attorneys, Ted Lockyear Jr. and James Lopp Sr. He learned their motion for a new trial had been delayed. Two attempts to fly Irvin to Indiana were aborted when newsmen and women discovered their flight times and swarmed the San Francisco airport to cover his departure. Plans for an air return were canceled and Irvin was scheduled to leave by train to Chicago on Feb. 15. Aaron made the 2,000-mile ride home with Irvin, who received an ego boost when learning newsmen had nicknamed the conveyance the "Mad Dog Train." Irvin was handcuffed, with Hollen holding a chain leash attached to the cuffs, even during meals. After a three-hour layover in Ogden, Utah, the entourage boarded the City of Los Angeles for their final leg to Chicago. A three-car police convoy awaited Irvin there and quickly whisked him away to the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. Attorneys Ted Lockyear Jr. and James Lopp Sr. took their case through a maze of courts, and in mid-August 1956 the Indiana Supreme Court granted Leslie Irvin a stay of execution until December 1, 1956. Irvin's attorneys argued the trial was held in an atmosphere of bias and prejudice against their client, and by June 1 had filed a 5,000-page trial transcript with the state Supreme Court. The high court eventually extended Irvin's execution to March 29, 1957, then to July 9, 1957.
On July 9, 1957, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted Irvin an indefinite stay of execution, five hours before his scheduled trip to the death chamber. His case wound its way through the federal system, where courts were asked to consider whether the guilty verdict was influenced by a forced confession, police abuse and a jury prejudiced by inflammatory media coverage. The U.S. Supreme Court finally accepted the case and heard oral arguments on November 9, 1960. On June 5, 1961, the Supreme Court handed down the historic decision and ordered a new trial. It marked the first time the high court had overturned a conviction because of pretrial publicity. The decision altered the way newspapers, radio and television covered criminal cases, and the way authorities released information. The case would be cited in journalism law classes all over the country.
Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark wrote in his opinion: "With his life at stake, it is not requiring too much that petitioner (Irvin) be tried in an atmosphere undisturbed by so huge a wave of public passion and by a jury in which two-thirds of the members admit, before hearing any testimony, to possessing a belief in his guilt." A second trial was conducted in Sullivan, Indiana, Lockyear and Lopp were excused from further duties and Evansville attorney Marion Rice agreed to defend Irvin, assisted by his law partner, Jack VanStone, and George Taylor of Sullivan. Vanderburgh County Prosecutor O.H. Roberts Jr.; Deputy Attorney General Richard Givan, who later would become chief justice of the Indiana Supreme Court; and Sullivan County Prosecutor Paul R. Whitlock handled the state's case. Sullivan Circuit Judge Joe Lowdermilk presided. The trial was conducted in a more subdued atmosphere. On June 13, 1962, the seven-man, five-woman jury convicted Irvin of first-degree murder in the slaying of Wesley Kerr after deliberating for five hours and 15 minutes. Irvin received a life sentence, which he served as a model prisoner in the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City.
During his time in prison he became a talented leather craftsman, fashioning billfolds, purses, belts and other items that were sold in the prison store. He remained an avid sports fan until his death at the age of 59 on November 9, 1983 from lung cancer.
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