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Man
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File
date: Monday, March 24, 2003 |
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Man
pleads guilty to killing two police officers in 1957 |
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File
date: Monday, March 24, 2003 |
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1-29-03
UPDATE
Arrest
Made in 45-Year-Old Murder Case
Fingerprint
checks finally lead to Gerald Fiten Mason, 68, of South Carolina, accused of
fatally shooting two El Segundo police officers in 1957.
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A South Carolina man was arrested today for investigation of
killing two El Segundo police officers 45 years ago after allegedly raping and
robbing couples at a lovers lane.
Gerald Fiten Mason, 68, apparently led a "very well-adjusted, normal
life" in the years after the 1957 attack and was arrested without
resistance at his home in Columbia, S.C., Los Angeles County Sheriff's Capt.
Frank Merriman said.
"For all I know, this could be the ultimate 'scared straight,'"
Merriman said, referring to a program in which youngsters are taken to talk to
convicts in the hope that it will deter them from committing crimes.
Fingerprints taken from a stolen car on the night of the killings were traced
to Mason through a new FBI database, authorities said.
They were linked to Mason through what authorities believe was his only
criminal conviction for a 1956 burglary in South Carolina.
"The message is that we in law enforcement never give up," said
Sheriff Lee Baca, whose cold case unit helped investigate.
The officers "can now rest in peace with the knowledge that the killer has
been caught," Baca said at a news conference.
Mason was charged Friday by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office
with two counts of murder along with rape, kidnapping and robbery.
The officers were killed after pulling over a motorist for running a red light.
Milton Curtis, 25, and Richard Phillips, 28, were shot on July 22, 1957, in El
Segundo, a suburb 14 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles.
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12:04
PM PST, January 29, 2003 |
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1-27-03Unsolved Murder of Police OfficersDetective Rick Green of the L.A.S.D. Homicide Bureau
is seeking information regarding a case from 1957. Anyone
that was working Firestone Station at the time of the incident
is requested to relay information they may remember.
The case occurred July of 1957 in ElSegundo, CA.
Two ElSegundo Police Officers stopped a car at Rosecrans
& Palm for a traffic violation. The Driver of the car
got out and shot both officers, who
died at the scene.
The suspect had previously raped a 15 year old
girl, tormented her three teenage companions and stolen
their car. On the 23rd of July, after their day shift,
patrol deputies at Firestone Station were taken to the
area of the crime scene and used to set up a perimeter,
where all cars coming and going into the crime area, were
stopped and search. This continued into the late hours of
the night.
Detective Green would like to talk to any such
Deputies that worked in that area. He would also like
to talk to any Deputies that did any type of investigation
on this case. If you have a memory that can
help or know of anyone who might have information:
Please contact Detective Green at Homicide Bureau...
.........
(323) 890-5618
Or email him at... rwgreen@lasd.org
MORE DETAILS
Thanks to Gerry Olmsted for this article. Shows you what a little hardwork and a computer can do even after 45 years. After 45 Years, an Arrest in the Killing of 2 El Segundo Officers issolvedJanuary 30, 2003
By JOHN M. BRODER
EL SEGUNDO, Calif., Jan. 29 - It was one of the coldest
cases in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's cold
case file, the unsolved murder of two young police officers
here after a traffic stop early in the morning of July 22,
1957.
No major break in the investigation had occurred since
1960, when a Manhattan Beach homeowner found two watches
and a gun in his backyard and gave them to the police. The
watches had been stolen from two teenagers assaulted in the
area on the night of the killings. The gun was traced to a
Sears in Shreveport, La., but the trail went dead there.
The case remained open but inactive for four decades,
until, the police said, a tipster called detectives last
September to identify the killer. The tip proved false, but
as a result of reopening the case, the police decided to
check fingerprints they had had on file since 1957 against
a nationwide computerized database set up by the F.B.I.
last February.
The prints led to Columbia, S.C., where early this morning
the police arrested Gerald F. Mason, a 68-year-old retired
gas station owner living in a comfortable suburban tract
northwest of town. He is being held without bond pending an
extradition hearing.
The police have found no record of any crimes committed by
Mr. Mason since 1957; there was only one burglary charge in
South Carolina from 1956. It was the fingerprints from that
arrest that appear to match prints taken from the stolen
car the presumed killer was driving the night the two El
Segundo officers were shot.
The police put Mr. Mason under surveillance weeks ago, and
he apparently was unaware that he was being watched. He
played golf on Tuesday and was arrested at his home at 7
a.m. today.
Chris Mills, Mr. Mason's lawyer, said California had begun
extradition proceedings. He said Mr. Mason was arrested on
a fugitive warrant by a contingent of United States
marshalls and South Carolina and California law enforcement
officers.
"The family is in shock," Mr. Mills said. "We're talking
about a man who has led a law-abiding life here for 42
years or more."
Mr. Mason's neighbor of 10 years, Betty G. Wiggins, said:
"What gets me is why would it take so many years to find
somebody who has been so well known here in Columbia? It's
not like he was living like a fugitive, hiding or running
away from something. That's why I just know they've got the
wrong man."
Ms. Wiggins said Mr. Mason and his wife, Betty, have two
daughters and three grandchildren.
Relatives gathered at the home today. Mr. Mason's younger
brother, Murray, said he and the family believe the arrest
is "a case of mistaken identity."
"If he's ever even been in California, we don't know when
it could have been," he said.
The 1957 case of the Lover's Lane Bandit has haunted and
frustrated the El Segundo police, the Los Angeles Sheriff's
Department and the Los Angeles County District Attorney's
office. Law enforcement officials reserve a special
contempt for police killers, particularly the ones who
elude capture for years.
Around midnight on July 21, 1957, a man accosted two
teenage couples necking in their cars along a well-known
lover's lane on Van Ness Avenue in Hawthorne, just east of
El Segundo. He tied up the four teenagers, robbed them,
forced them to strip and raped a 15-year-old girl. He stole
their 1949 Ford and drove off into the night, with the
girls' skirts lying on the floor of the back seat.
About an hour and a half later, Officers Richard A.
Phillips, 28, and Milton G. Curtis, 25, of the El Segundo
police saw a car run a red light at Rosecrans Avenue and
Sepulveda Boulevard, a quiet, undeveloped area of tall
eucalyptus trees near a Standard Oil tank farm. The
officers ordered the driver out of the car. Just then, a
second El Segundo cruiser pulled up. The arresting officers
waved the car on, thinking they had the situation under
control.
The driver then pulled out a .22-caliber snub-nosed
revolver and shot both officers. Officer Phillips fired
several shots at the fleeing car and radioed for help
before losing consciousness. Both officers died before
reaching the hospital. Officer Phillips had two years on
the job, Officer Curtis two months.
The driver abandoned the car four blocks away and ran south
into Manhattan Beach through yards and over fences,
dropping the watches he had stolen from the teenagers, the
police said, and his weapon.
Despite a wide manhunt involving local, state and federal
police, no further trace of the killer was found. The case
was featured in True Detective magazine in 1958 with a plea
for public help to solve the murders.
"We followed literally thousands of leads and tips, but
with no success," said Jack Wayt, chief of the El Segundo
police. "But we certainly never forgot this case. The
officers are long gone, but they never were forgotten."
There was a flurry of activity three years after the
shootings, when the watches and the gun were recovered, but
it led nowhere. The case drifted into the inactive file.
Early last year, the F.B.I. established a database that for
the first time compiled fingerprints from police agencies
all over the country. Law enforcement agencies began
looking at old cases to see whether this new tool could
help. The Los Angeles District Attorney's office reopened
3,000 unsolved homicide cases dating to 1980 with the aid
of the new database.
But it did not look back 45 years, until the El Segundo
police received the tip in September.
"That's the way these things go sometimes - a fluke, a
tip," said Capt. Frank Merriman of the Los Angeles County
Sheriff Department's homicide bureau, who oversaw the
handling of the case. "It turned out to be wrong this time,
but it caused us to look in the right direction."
The police had several good prints from the stolen car,
which matched the prints from the 1956 South Carolina
burglary arrest. No good prints were on the gun for
comparison, because it had been in the ground for three
years, Mr. Merriman said. He added that ballistics tests
from the weapon were "consistent" with the bullets that
killed the officers, but were not conclusive because of the
poor condition of the gun.
The authorities said one of the reasons it took so long to
find Mr. Mason, a factor that may complicate any
prosecution, was that he had led a spotless life since
1957. They said it is unusual for someone to commit a
brutal crime just once.
In the county's request for extradition, Mr. Mason is
charged with two counts of murder and multiple counts of
kidnapping, robbery and rape. There is no statute of
limitations on murder, and the other charges can be brought
because Mr. Mason had left California within three years of
the crimes, which suspends the state statute of
limitations.
Steve Cooley, the Los Angeles County District Attorney,
said that he was barred from seeking the death penalty
because the California death penalty law on the books in
1957 was later invalidated by the United States Supreme
Court.
John Booterbaugh, 79, served on the El Segundo force with
the two officers and said today that he was shocked that
someone had been charged in their killings.
"I thought it would never, never happen," Mr. Booterbaugh,
said outside the office of the El Segundo police
department, from which he retired in 1971. "The tragic part
about the whole thing is that some of the old timers I
worked with are no longer around here to see this."
Thanks to Gerry Olmsted for this article. Shows you what a little hard
work and a computer can do even after 45 years.
After 45 Years, an Arrest in the Killing of 2 El Segundo Officers is
solved
January 30, 2003
By JOHN M. BRODER
EL SEGUNDO, Calif., Jan. 29 - It was one of the coldest
cases in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's cold
case file, the unsolved murder of two young police officers
here after a traffic stop early in the morning of July 22,
1957.
No major break in the investigation had occurred since
1960, when a Manhattan Beach homeowner found two watches
and a gun in his backyard and gave them to the police. The
watches had been stolen from two teenagers assaulted in the
area on the night of the killings. The gun was traced to a
Sears in Shreveport, La., but the trail went dead there.
The case remained open but inactive for four decades,
until, the police said, a tipster called detectives last
September to identify the killer. The tip proved false, but
as a result of reopening the case, the police decided to
check fingerprints they had had on file since 1957 against
a nationwide computerized database set up by the F.B.I.
last February.
The prints led to Columbia, S.C., where early this morning
the police arrested Gerald F. Mason, a 68-year-old retired
gas station owner living in a comfortable suburban tract
northwest of town. He is being held without bond pending an
extradition hearing.
The police have found no record of any crimes committed by
Mr. Mason since 1957; there was only one burglary charge in
South Carolina from 1956. It was the fingerprints from that
arrest that appear to match prints taken from the stolen
car the presumed killer was driving the night the two El
Segundo officers were shot.
The police put Mr. Mason under surveillance weeks ago, and
he apparently was unaware that he was being watched. He
played golf on Tuesday and was arrested at his home at 7
a.m. today.
Chris Mills, Mr. Mason's lawyer, said California had begun
extradition proceedings. He said Mr. Mason was arrested on
a fugitive warrant by a contingent of United States
marshalls and South Carolina and California law enforcement
officers.
"The family is in shock," Mr. Mills said. "We're talking
about a man who has led a law-abiding life here for 42
years or more."
Mr. Mason's neighbor of 10 years, Betty G. Wiggins, said:
"What gets me is why would it take so many years to find
somebody who has been so well known here in Columbia? It's
not like he was living like a fugitive, hiding or running
away from something. That's why I just know they've got the
wrong man."
Ms. Wiggins said Mr. Mason and his wife, Betty, have two
daughters and three grandchildren.
Relatives gathered at the home today. Mr. Mason's younger
brother, Murray, said he and the family believe the arrest
is "a case of mistaken identity."
"If he's ever even been in California, we don't know when
it could have been," he said.
The 1957 case of the Lover's Lane Bandit has haunted and
frustrated the El Segundo police, the Los Angeles Sheriff's
Department and the Los Angeles County District Attorney's
office. Law enforcement officials reserve a special
contempt for police killers, particularly the ones who
elude capture for years.
Around midnight on July 21, 1957, a man accosted two
teenage couples necking in their cars along a well-known
lover's lane on Van Ness Avenue in Hawthorne, just east of
El Segundo. He tied up the four teenagers, robbed them,
forced them to strip and raped a 15-year-old girl. He stole
their 1949 Ford and drove off into the night, with the
girls' skirts lying on the floor of the back seat.
About an hour and a half later, Officers Richard A.
Phillips, 28, and Milton G. Curtis, 25, of the El Segundo
police saw a car run a red light at Rosecrans Avenue and
Sepulveda Boulevard, a quiet, undeveloped area of tall
eucalyptus trees near a Standard Oil tank farm. The
officers ordered the driver out of the car. Just then, a
second El Segundo cruiser pulled up. The arresting officers
waved the car on, thinking they had the situation under
control.
The driver then pulled out a .22-caliber snub-nosed
revolver and shot both officers. Officer Phillips fired
several shots at the fleeing car and radioed for help
before losing consciousness. Both officers died before
reaching the hospital. Officer Phillips had two years on
the job, Officer Curtis two months.
The driver abandoned the car four blocks away and ran south
into Manhattan Beach through yards and over fences,
dropping the watches he had stolen from the teenagers, the
police said, and his weapon.
Despite a wide manhunt involving local, state and federal
police, no further trace of the killer was found. The case
was featured in True Detective magazine in 1958 with a plea
for public help to solve the murders.
"We followed literally thousands of leads and tips, but
with no success," said Jack Wayt, chief of the El Segundo
police. "But we certainly never forgot this case. The
officers are long gone, but they never were forgotten."
There was a flurry of activity three years after the
shootings, when the watches and the gun were recovered, but
it led nowhere. The case drifted into the inactive file.
Early last year, the F.B.I. established a database that for
the first time compiled fingerprints from police agencies
all over the country. Law enforcement agencies began
looking at old cases to see whether this new tool could
help. The Los Angeles District Attorney's office reopened
3,000 unsolved homicide cases dating to 1980 with the aid
of the new database.
But it did not look back 45 years, until the El Segundo
police received the tip in September.
"That's the way these things go sometimes - a fluke, a
tip," said Capt. Frank Merriman of the Los Angeles County
Sheriff Department's homicide bureau, who oversaw the
handling of the case. "It turned out to be wrong this time,
but it caused us to look in the right direction."
The police had several good prints from the stolen car,
which matched the prints from the 1956 South Carolina
burglary arrest. No good prints were on the gun for
comparison, because it had been in the ground for three
years, Mr. Merriman said. He added that ballistics tests
from the weapon were "consistent" with the bullets that
killed the officers, but were not conclusive because of the
poor condition of the gun.
The authorities said one of the reasons it took so long to
find Mr. Mason, a factor that may complicate any
prosecution, was that he had led a spotless life since
1957. They said it is unusual for someone to commit a
brutal crime just once.
In the county's request for extradition, Mr. Mason is
charged with two counts of murder and multiple counts of
kidnapping, robbery and rape. There is no statute of
limitations on murder, and the other charges can be brought
because Mr. Mason had left California within three years of
the crimes, which suspends the state statute of
limitations.
Steve Cooley, the Los Angeles County District Attorney,
said that he was barred from seeking the death penalty
because the California death penalty law on the books in
1957 was later invalidated by the United States Supreme
Court.
John Booterbaugh, 79, served on the El Segundo force with
the two officers and said today that he was shocked that
someone had been charged in their killings.
"I thought it would never, never happen," Mr. Booterbaugh,
said outside the office of the El Segundo police
department, from which he retired in 1971. "The tragic part
about the whole thing is that some of the old timers I
worked with are no longer around here to see this."