Celebrity Crime

December 12, 2004

Charles Manson

Thirty-five years after the Tate-LaBianca murders, it's time to demystify the would-be messiah that Vincent Bugliosi portrayed in the best-selling true-crime book of all time, Helter Skelter. The real Charles Manson was a semi-literate, petty criminal – car thief, check forger, pimp, drug dealer – so insecure about his ability to cope in the real world that on the day of the parole that plunged him into infamy he begged prison officials not to release him.

by Denise Noe

Charles Manson is the most famous common criminal in the world, his name a synonym for evil. Thirty-five years after the infamous Tate-LaBianca murders, he continues to be regarded as one of the most devilish cult figures in U.S. history, the possessor of a charisma and sexual magnetism so extraordinary that he ruled a "Family" of fanatically devoted followers willing to kill at his command. This is the Charles Manson that prosecutor, Vincent Bugliosi, popularized in the best-selling true-crime book of all time, Helter Skelter.

Manson was an unlikely candidate for the role of the would-be messiah that Bugliosi sold first to Manson's jury and then to a feckless national media enthralled by the cult-tinged horror of the Tate-LaBianca murders. At the time of the murders, Manson was a destitute parolee living a hand-to-mouth existence at Spahn Ranch, a place that had once served as a movie set for cowboy flicks and was then functioning as a dude ranch. He and 15 to 20 other drifters with whom he associated had been allowed to live on the premises by its 80-year-old owner, George Spahn, in exchange for helping out with chores like shoveling horse manure, and sexual favors freely provided by some of the young women. The group habitually ate food that its females cadged from dumpsters. A combination of panhandling, petty thievery, and drug dealing also helped them survive and support their primary pastimes: smoking marijuana and dropping acid, making music, and idly conversing.

May 1, 2003

(photo courtesy salmineo.com)

Residents of New York City's crime-ridden Hell's Kitchen neighborhood predicted that Salvatore Mineo Jr. would come to a bad end. The slight boy they called "Junior" in elementary school was a playground brawler, thief, and gang member, according to Marvin J. Wolf and Katherine Mader in Fallen Angels. The biographers wrote that acquaintances predicted he would wind up on the wrong end of a knife.

by Denise Noe

"He'll end up with a knife in him."

But questions cluster around the beginning of Sal Mineo's life as they do around the tragic end to it. John Seger, owner of Sal Mineo's official website (www.salmineo.com), says that "According to Sal's family, Mineo was never arrested. The entire juvenile-delinquent angle was something made up for publicity."

Mineo was born Jan. 10, 1939 to Salvatore Mineo Sr., a coffin maker from Sicily, and his wife Josephine. He was the third child and third son. His sister was born four years later.

Mineo took dancing classes as a prepubescent and the people who saw him dance then knew the boy had talent and that he loved dancing. But, according to biographer H. Paul Jeffers, there was a downside to being a dancer in his macho neighborhood. The other boys in his gang no longer wanted him with them and taunted him as a "sissy." Outraged, Junior fought the teasers with his fists.

The dancing lessons paid off, landing Mineo a gig on a local TV program called "The Ted Steele Show."

At 11 years old, Mineo won a part in The Rose Tattoo, a Tennessee Williams play appearing on Broadway that starred Eli Wallach and Maureen Stapleton. Mineo had a single line: "The goat is in the yard."

Bob Crane

There's more than enough blame to explain why the 1978 murder of Bob Crane goes unsolved.

by Denise M. Clark

The 1978 murder of Bob Crane, the likable actor who played Col. Robert Hogan in "Hogan's Heroes," goes unsolved. The truth behind his murder is lost in a web of lies, ineptitude, and downright carelessness. Who's to blame? The Arizona Department of Safety, charged with examining the evidence? The Scottsdale Police Department? The Maricopa County District Attorney's Office? There's more than enough blame to go around.

Sex, Lies & Videotape

Bob Crane was 49 when he was found bludgeoned to death in his Scottsdale apartment on the morning of June 29. Though he spent years searching for stardom, Crane's rise to notoriety as the charming, clever and always funny Col. Hogan was not an overnight success. He spent years playing bit parts in small theaters in the Los Angeles area. He made a living as a disc jockey for KNX in Los Angeles from 1956 until he caught his major break in 1965 when he was cast into the new television sitcom that propelled him into the spotlight and made him an international star.

Behind Crane's dimpled grin and wise cracking persona lay a darker side. He was obsessed with sex, cameras, and videos. He had countless extramarital affairs, taking hundreds of photographs of his escapades with women. When Crane traveled, he took his cameras with him. He developed his own film and photographs, and he didn't hesitate to show them to his friends.

March 4, 2007

More than seven decades after his execution for committing "the crime of the century," Bruno Richard Hauptmann still has his defenders and sympathizers.

by Lona Manning

As Bruno Richard Hauptmann counted down the days to his execution at the State Prison in Trenton, N.J., his wife Anna went on the lecture circuit, asking her fellow German immigrants to donate to the Hauptmann defense fund. Her husband was not guilty of the "Crime of the Century," she pleaded -- he had not kidnapped and murdered the little Lindbergh baby.

Many checks were mailed directly to Hauptmann at the Death House. He realized that the donors who sent only one dollar didn't necessarily believe in his innocence, they wanted him to endorse the check so they could have the autograph of the man condemned for killing the child of the world-famous aviator, Charles Lindbergh.

But he's acquired a host of new supporters in the decades since he died in the electric chair. Conspiracy theories abound about the Lindbergh kidnapping case, and many people unfamiliar with – or dismissive of – the evidence, believe Hauptmann was framed.

April 14, 2003

JonBenet Ramsey

by Ryan Ross

Copyright by Ryan Ross. 2003. All rights reserved.

Related Story: The Murder of JonBenét Ramsey by JJ Maloney and J. Patrick O'Connor

Editor's Note:

On July 9, 2008, Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy stated that DNA tests conducted by Bode Technology Group revealed that skin cells left behind on JonBenet Ramsey's long underwear point to a killer other than the girl's parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, or her brother, Burke. Mrs. Ramsey died of ovarian cancer in 2006 at age 49.

"To the extent that we may have contributed in any way to the public perception that you might have been involved in this crime, I am deeply sorry," Lacy wrote in an exoneration letter to John Ramsey, who now has remarried and lives in Michigan. "No innocent person should have to endure such an extensive trial in the court of public opinion."

Early in the investigation into the 6-year-old pageant star's brutal murder on Christmas night in 1996, Lacy said that Boulder police discovered male DNA in a drop of blood on JonBenet's underwear that did not match any members of JonBenet's immediate family. The tests conducted by Bode Technology Group, Lacy said, revealed the same DNA that was found previously in the drop of blood was present in three places on JonBenet's long underwear.

Lacy stated that Boulder investigators now hope they'll eventually find a DNA match in the ever-expanding national DNA databank, a sentiment echoed by John Ramsey. "I think the people that are in charge of the investigation are focused on that, and that gives me a lot of comfort," Mr. Ramsey said in an interview with a Denver TV station. "Certainly we are grateful that they acknowledged that we, based on that, certainly could not have been involved."

Even if a DNA match is eventually made, it does not mean that the DNA from this contaminated crime scene will reveal it to be that of JonBenet's killer, although it possibly could. For now, all that is known, is that it is not the DNA of John, Burke, or the late Patsy Ramsey. In the meantime, the JonBenet case will continue unsolved and will remain one of the most botched crime investigations in the annals of U.S. law enforcement.

It's time for closure. More than six years have passed since JonBenet Ramsey was killed. Most all the evidence is in. The principals have had more than enough time to ponder, scrutinize, and digest. The grand jurors have long since heard, deliberated, and gone home without a peep. The new district attorney isn't up to the job. The media are desperate for a climax — any climax.

The public — misled by assorted media jackals clamoring for microwave justice — pines for a murder trial that will never happen, all but resigned to an O.J.-esque outcome in which there is no closure, and where doubts and suspicions linger as long as memory allows.

Some have moved on. Others will perpetuate the hand wringing about how the system failed.

No one will be satisfied. And the truth will remain buried.

But there is a way out of the morass. The mysterious 1996 killing of beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey of Boulder, Colo., doesn't have to be another O.J. There is still time. The police blunders were not fatal. The right laws are on the Colorado books. Secret statements by prosecutors suggest the evidence is strong. All that's needed now is a strong Colorado governor willing to intervene by appointing a special prosecutor to take over the case.

Even if Gov. Bill Owens does appoint a special prosecutor, getting to the bottom of the mystery is not going to be easy. The key players all bring ample flaws to the table. The process has more potholes than pavement. And given the track record of events since the night JonBenet was killed, more blunders by those responsible for ensuring justice are likely.

But it can happen nonetheless, and it won't take a miracle.

Rubin "Hurricane" Carter

The movie The Hurricane portrays Rubin "Hurricane" Carter as a black man wronged by a racist justice system. But Carter is a fraud and so was the movie, from beginning to end.

by Lona Manning

Most people who know about the Hurricane Carter case only know the Hollywood version presented in the movie starring Denzel Washington. The Hurricane, released in 1999, features crooked, lying, racist cops and frightened witnesses who won't come forward. Carter himself is brash but noble, persecuted his whole life by one obsessed detective who keeps sending him to jail.

The real Rubin Carter and the real Lafayette Grill murder case are nothing like the movie. This movie bills itself as being about hope and redemption. The movie, in terms of Carter and the actual murders at the Lafayette Grill, is a fraud from beginning to end, full of errors, distortions and fictions, large and small. Some events were invented to add dramatic excitement, but most of the distortions and misrepresentations appear to be attempts to place a halo over Carter's head and paint horns and a tail on the police. If this was director Norman Jewison's attempt to right one of the legions of wrongs of a justice system riddled with racism, he picked the wrong case. Once Jewison had made that mistake in judgment, his need to fabricate the truth took over.

Edgar Smith

Edgar Smith, with William F. Buckley Jr. blithely playing his stooge, wrote his way to freedom from the Death House in Trenton State Prison in 1971, becoming the most famous death-row prisoner of his time. Fourteen and-a-half years earlier, Smith -- at age 23 -- had bludgeoned to death 15-year-old Vickie Zielinski in Mahwah, N.J. Less than five years after his release from prison, Smith kidnapped a petite but scrappy young mother who miraculously managed to escape from Smith's car with a knife stuck in her side.

by Lona Manning

Sixty-nine year-old Edgar Smith lives an anonymous existence as one of almost 160,000 inmates in the California penal system. At one time, however, he was the most famous prisoner in the United States. His story begins on the other side of the country and almost half a century ago, in the peaceful town of Mahwah, N.J. In 1957, Smith was sentenced to die in the electric chair for the murder of Vickie Zielinski, a pretty young cheerleader whose savagely bludgeoned body was found in a sandpit. The crime and the trial drew national attention. Smith claimed he was innocent and named another man as the killer, but he was found guilty and sent to the Death House in Trenton State Prison. From his prison cell, Smith managed to stave off execution with a series of appeals, and even wrote a book giving his version of the case. He began to correspond with columnist William F. Buckley Jr., who helped him overturn his conviction and negotiate a plea bargain instead of a second trial. At the time of his release in December 1971, he was the longest-serving prisoner on death row in the United States. 

Smith's successful transition to the world outside the 20-foot walls of Trenton State Prison lasted only as long as his fame. By 1976 he was in California, broke and drinking too much. That's when a woman named Lefteriya Ozbun discovered the real Edgar Smith, and miraculously lived to tell about it.