Columbo Case - Part III
Bearwolf
There were five "star" prosecution witnesses whose testimony was
considered important in the case. (Remember, there was no preliminary
hearing).
They were:
1) Hit Man One - Lanyon Mitchell - under immunity testified he just
wanted sex from Patty
2) Hit Man Two - Roman Sobczynski - under immunity testified he just
wanted sex from Patty
3) Two drug store employees, Bert Green and Joy Heysek - testified
DeLuca told them about the murders within hours after they happened -
although they did not tell police until months later. DeLuca testified
that he told them about being questioned by police 13 days after the
murders when police asked him about details they knew. DeLuca testified
that Green, an assistant store manager, was raiding the narcotics supply
at the store. He also testified that Heysek was his former mistress
whom he dropped for Patty Columbo when she started working there.
4) A former cellmate of DeLuca's when he was held in custody, Clifford
Childs - testified DeLuca confessed to him, and also provided maps and
other documents with his testimony to show DeLuca hired him to kill
Green and Heysek. DeLuca testified that the information was drawn up
for his lawyer's benefit to aid him in locating the two for questioning
prior to the trial.
Try as they did, Patty's attorney's could not get her a separate trial.
She was "tagged" to DeLuca and on advice from her attorneys she never
took the stand in her own defense. The Chicago Tribune reported that
the only evidence linking her to the murders was a hair found on her
brother's body which the crime lab said might be, but not definitely,
was hers. The best defense witness was Patty's 22 year old cousin who
testified he spoke with his aunt on May 5th, seven hours after
prosectors said she was dead.
Judge Pincham did not allow testimony of friends and neighbors of the
Columbos about the reconciliation between Patty and her parents. He so
strickly limited the testimony of Elk Grove Village Deputy Police Chief
William Kohnke that it kept DeLuca's lawyers from pursuing a theory of a
police "frame up." He allowed three witnesses who did not want to
answer questions about Frank Columbo's illicit business dealings to take
the Fifth Amendment outside the presence of the jury.
Contradicting evidence found at the home that the locks had been
tampered with, prosecutors stated in their closing arguments that the
lack of forced entry into the home indicated that Patty Columbo helped
DeLuca get into the house.
Both Patty Columbo and Frank DeLuca were found guilty on all charges and
sentenced to 200-300 years each.
Long before I ever heard of this case or these people I had little
snippets of information occasionally come my way which always seemed to
tie into a storefront restaurant called "Palumbos" on Western Avenue in
Chicago. The reason I'm able to remember these things is because the
first piece of information seemed so bizarre to me that from then on I
more or less filed each piece of information away about this restaurant,
kind of "stacking" them and reviewing the previous information at that
time. The statement about the "GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE" below is a key
piece of information.
The first time I was in 5th grade. We had just moved to a new
neighborhood and a girl I'll call "Ann", who I would eventually become
friends with (we still communicate occasionally), asked me if I
remembered her from a girl's party she had gone to (see my posting "The
First Visit -- The Heartbreak" where I describe meeting a little girl
who introduced herself a Patty Hearst. Ann would be the heavy set
little girl I also talk about briefly.) She pointed in the direction of
the restaurant and said, "She lives down there, but it wasn't at her
house. IT WAS AT HER GRANDMOTHER'S, way over there somewhere", (waving
her arm east). Her mother then came up to us and Ann said, "See Mom, I
told you." Her mother said, "Yes, it is her! Do you remember us?" I
said, "No, I don't think it was me you saw." Ann said, "Yes it was. I
saw you the other day in the same dress you had on at the party. You
were with a lady at the party. I saw you with your mother and she looks
like the same lady." I told them I thought they were making a mistake,
thinking, "What weird neighbors they are!"
The second time also involved Ann, but one to two years later. She was
telling me about a girl she played with when she was younger. I didn't
know who she was talking about and I thought I knew all the neighborhood
kids by then. She said, "No, she lived over there on that block on the
other side of Western Avenue." She pointed east toward the restaurant.
(We were just a couple of blocks from Western Avenue but it was a
boundary line for the school system, etc.) I said I was surprised I had
never heard her mention her before. She said that her mother didn't
take her to her house anymore and that was okay with her because she
didn't really like going there. She said she always had to go to the
other girl's house because her father was always worried about his kids
going other places. She said he was really famous and so he changed the
kids names in school because they would have trouble with the other kids
if he didn't. I asked what her name was and she said, "I think it was
Columbo, but the girl said her dad owned the whole building where the
restaurant was and he wanted the name "Palumbo" so no one would know who
he was." I asked her why he was famous and she said she thought she
heard he was a doctor or something.
The third time was a short time after this (I'd say just months).
Myself, Ann, and another girl I'll call Sue started to go to this
restaurant after school. They had little table jukeboxes and great
hamburgers. The people who worked there were very nice to us. One day
Ann said she couldn't go to the restaurant anymore. She had an adult
brother who had found out we went there and told her mother it wasn't a
good place for her to be. We felt bad for Ann, but Sue and I continued
to go there -- until my dad said he wanted to talk to me about the
restaurant. He told me I couldn't go there anymore. I asked him why,
explaining that we were not doing anything wrong and the restaurant
people didn't mind us being there. He said, "That's Columbo, not
Palumbo and I don't want you in there." (My dad had a way of putting
things.) I said, "Yes, I know." He laughed and said somewhat
mockingly, "Oh, you've heard of the Columbos of New York?" I didn't
know what he meant by that but I said, "No, Ann told me." He said with
a big scowl, "Ann told you?" I said, "Yes, she said they changed their
name for the kids because they were famous." He just said, "Oh, well
Ann's brother is right. You can't go there anymore."
The fourth time I remember another strange occurrence associated with
that restaurant happened within about a year. I used to go to another
friend's house after school sometimes. We would sit around playing
records (45s!) and talking until about dinner time, so I would leave at
almost the same time every day I went there. I would always walk the
same route home. One day when I got to the end of her block (the
beginning of my block) I looked to my right and saw a limosine illegally
parked at the front door of the Palumbo restaurant and several men in
suits walking back and forth from the restaurant to the car. I looked
to my left and saw a group of neighbors standing next to the corner
house talking about all the activity. I heard the one man in the group
say he would go up to the restaurant and try to find out what was going
on. The women were telling him what questions to ask, and about which
food-to-go would take the longest to prepare. I stood across the street
from them watching for as long as I could, in plain sight of them, but I
had to get home.
The next day when I got to the same corner, the woman who lived in the
house was out as usual sweeping, raking, or whatever. She saw me and
said, "Honey, do you know who that was up at Palumbo's yesterday? That
was the President's brother! He's the Attorney General for the United
States" (with emphasis). (President Kennedy had given a speech in
Chicago the day we saw the limosine.) I asked her how she knew and she
said, "Mr. Whoever found out when he went up there. I asked her why he
was there and she said, "I don't know, but he's supposed to go do things
for the President that he can't do himself, so he must have wanted him
to go there for some reason." I knew they had great hamburgers so I
stood there for a few seconds trying to decide if that could have been
the reason for the trip. The woman said, "That's one you can tell your
grandchildren. That doesn't happen in every neighborhood."
The fifth time I heard about this restaurant was from a girl I ran into
when I was a young adult. I never really knew her very well, just
through another girl. She was alittle older than me. She mentioned
that she was familiar with my neighborhood because she used to baby sit
for a family named Columbo that lived across Western Avenue. She said
she had gotten the job through family connections. I said, "Oh, the
ones that own Palumbo's?" She said, "No, I don't think they own the
restaurant in that building. There is some connection to it though
because everyone is always getting them confused, but I don't know what
that's all about." Then she mentioned that they were a large family
with many relatives, and there was "even another Patty Columbo up north
somewhere." She said she didn't think they had too much contact with
them though because she used to answer the phone while baby sitting and
they never called. She said she would get calls for them sometimes
though which she had been told to redirect to them.
Coincidence or conspiracy?
Chicago Tribune: 5/8/76,front page; 5/9/76,p.3,s.1; 5/10/76,p.1,s.2;
5/11/76,p.3,s.1; 5/13/76,p.2,s.1; 5/14/76,p.3,s.1; 5/16/76,front page;
5/17/76,front page; 5/18/76,front page; 5/18/76,p.11,s.1;
5/19/76,p.3,s.1;
5/20/76,p.6,s.2; 5/22/76,p.3,s.1; 6/3/76,p.1,s.2; 7/16/76; 9/8/76,front
pg;
6/10/77,p.18,s.1; 6/29/77,front page; 6/29/77,p.4,s.1; 6/30/77,front
page; 7/2/77,front page; 7/2/77,p.2,s.1; 7/3/77,front page;
7/3/77,p.8,s.1; 9/7/80,p.4,s.1
Mindcontrol
MKULTRA