Man arrested in beheading of 91-year-old screenwriter
The Kentucky Wizard
Man held in Hollywood homicides
Screenwriter beheaded, neighbor killed
Tuesday, June 15, 2004 Posted: 9:43 AM EDT (1343 GMT)
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- A homeless man suspected of beheading a
91-year-old screenwriter and stabbing the man's neighbor to death was
arrested outside a Hollywood studio minutes after his photograph was
broadcast on television.
Kevin Lee Graff, 27, was arrested Monday after guards at Paramount
Studios recognized him from a televised news conference and called
authorities, Police Chief William Bratton said.
He was arrested in the deaths of screenwriter Robert Lees, whose credits
included several Abbott and Costello movies, and retired physician Hal
Engelson.
Paramount guard Isaac Macias said the suspect had been turned away at
the studio gates, where he had asked guards for the telephone number of
a female employee and acted strangely.
Guards kept their surveillance camera trained on Graff, who had been
talking to himself and making obscene gestures at passing cars, security
Sgt. Craig Phillips said.
Moments later, Phillips saw a news conference about the slayings and
recognized Graff.
"I turned to the camera on my monitor. I said, `That's him! That's
him!'" Phillips said.
On Sunday, police found the body of Engelson, 67, at Engelson's home,
about two miles from the studio.
He had been booking an airline flight by telephone when the ticketing
agent reported hearing a commotion and notified police. Arriving
officers spotted Engelson's body through a window, and forced their way
inside.
In the rear of the home they found the severed head of Lees, a neighbor,
Bratton said. Lees' longtime girlfriend, Helen Colton, found his
headless body in his home.
"It was unreal, but I couldn't believe it," said Colton, 86. "I was
befuddled for a moment. It was like a movie, not real life."
Lees, who was blacklisted during the Communist scare of the 1950s, also
wrote under the name J.E. Selby, according to the Writers Guild of
America.
According to the Internet Movie Database, he was co-writer of several
Abbott and Costello films, including "Hold That Ghost" and "Abbott and
Costello Meet Frankenstein." His television credits include episodes of
"Rawhide" and "Alfred Hitchcock Presents."
Lees spoke in April 2002 at an event about the blacklist held by the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, academy spokesman John
Pavlik said. Colton had gone to Lees' home to pick him up for another
event at the academy.
People in Lees' wealthy, close-knit neighborhood said he had been a
lucid and entertaining storyteller. Helen Klein, a neighbor, said she
and her husband had been to his home, which was filled with Hollywood
memorabilia.
"I think he was a model for a senior citizen. He's just intelligent,
vibrant," Klein said.
The motive for the killings was under investigation and it was unclear
whether Graff knew the victims.
"It's too early in the investigation to understand why those two
particular houses, those two particular people were chosen, if they were
chosen at all," Bratton said.
The suspect was believed to have stolen Engleson's black Mercedes-Benz,
which was recovered nearby.
Graff, whose last know residence was in Fullerton, was known to frequent
the Hollywood area, Bratton said. He was arrested last year in Orange
County for allegedly failing to pay a traffic fine and has a half-dozen
minor criminal violations, according to police and court records.
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http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/25754.htm
June 15, 2004 -- LOS ANGELES — A homeless man was arrested yesterday in two
"horrendous" murders, one of them the beheading of a 91-year-old screenwriter
who wrote Abbott and Costello comedies, police said.
Police arrested 27-year-old Keven Lee Graff near the gates of the Paramount
Pictures studio lot in Hollywood as Police Chief William Bratton — New York's
former commissioner — was holding a press conference several miles away to
announce a search for the suspect.
Although Graff was not immediately charged in the murders of screenwriter Robert
Lees or his neighbor, Morley Engelson, who was in his 60s, Bratton said he
believed Graff was the prime suspect.
"We believe Graff is responsible for the brutal murders of Robert Lees and
Morley Engelson," he said.
Police believe that Lees was slain early on Sunday morning by a man who cut off
his head and ran with it next door, where he interrupted Engelson speaking on
the telephone and stabbed the retired physician to death.
Lees, whose screenplays include "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" and
"Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man," was blacklisted in Hollywood
during the McCarthy era.
He continued in the 1950s and 1960s to write for film and television under the
name "J.E. Selby," being credited for episodes of "Rawhide" and "Alfred
Hitchcock Presents."
- - - - - - - -
New York Daily News:
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/203064p-175078c.html
"Screenwriter, doc slaughtered in L.A."
By MATTHEW HELLER in Hollywood
and TRACY CONNOR in New York
DAILY NEWS WRITERS
A California drifter was busted yesterday for decapitating an old-time Hollywood
screenwriter and carrying his head to a neighbor's house, where he fatally
stabbed a wealthy doctor, police said.
Keven Graff, 27, was nabbed at a homeless hangout near the gates of Paramount
Pictures just minutes after Los Angeles cops named him as their prime suspect
and released his mug shot.
But police still have no motive for the murders of Robert Lees, 91, who co-wrote
Abbott and Costello films until he was blacklisted in the 1950s, and Dr. Morley
Engelson.
"This is one of the most horrendous crime scenes that I have seen during my 33
years as a police officer in this city," Detective Brian Tyndall said.
Engelson's slaying was discovered at 11 a.m. Sunday when cops were alerted by an
airline ticket agent who was on the phone with him when he was attacked.
Officers who responded were met with a gruesome scene: Engelson's body on the
floor in one room, and the severed head of Lees in a different part of the
house.
While they were trying to figure out what happened, Lees' girlfriend, Helen
Colton, 86, stumbled on his mutilated corpse at his bungalow directly behind
Engelson's house.
"We had a date at 4 to go to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,"
Colton told the Daily News yesterday. "I got all dressed up and thought he would
be all dressed up to meet me." But when Colton got to Lees' house, he wasn't
outside and she saw the morning newspaper had not been picked up. Alarmed, she
went inside.
"And there was his body, lying under a big comforter, with two legs sticking out
and a big heavy drawer on top of him," she said.
She dialed 911, and the operator told her to check if Lees was still breathing.
When Colton went back, she realized her companion of 21 years was dead.
"I saw big splatters of blood on the wall - which he just had painted. And then
I thought, 'Is that a body without a head on it?' It was unreal."
Investigators soon linked the two killings and determined the intruder first
slaughtered Lees, jumped over a fence with his head, dropped it in Engelson's
house, killed the 69-year-old doctor and fled in the doctor's Mercedes-Benz.
"We can't determine a motive," Police Chief William Bratton said. "There doesn't
seem to be a relationship" between the suspect and the victims. Graff was
described as a transient who frequented Hollywood Blvd. Public records show
several old addresses for him at Camp Pendleton in San Diego, though it's
unclear if he served in the military.
Lees was a talented screenwriter who began his career writing shorts for MGM and
then graduated to features, including the 1948 classic "Abbott and Costello Meet
Frankenstein."
A member of the American Communist Party, he was blacklisted by the studios
after refusing to name names for the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
He worked as a maitre d' in a Tucson hotel and in a clothing store before
getting back into showbiz by writing for TV shows like "Lassie" and "Flipper"
under a pseudonym.
Engelson was an internist who specialized in sleep disorders, and a horse-racing
enthusiast who owned a prize stallion.
"He was a wonderful man and a wonderful husband," his sister-in-law said. "He
certainly didn't deserve a horrible death."
(Originally published on June 15, 2004)