Retro crime: Valerie Percy - Killed without a clue
Patty
Killed without a clue
By DAVID J. KRAJICEK
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS
New York Daily News
August 1, 2004
The horror-film crash of shattering glass disturbed the Sunday morning stillness at
Windward, an opulent estate on Lake Michigan in Chicago's most exclusive suburb,
Kenilworth.
Loraine Percy stirred in bed. Sound asleep beside her was her husband, Charles, a
wunderkind executive who earned a fortune at Bell & Howell, then quit in his mid-40s to
try politics. He was two months away from election to the U.S. Senate.
A bleary Mrs. Percy considered the noise. One of the Percy twins, Sharon and Valerie, 21,
must have knocked a glass off a nightstand. She dozed off.
Later, at 5 a.m., she was roused again by an unexpected sound. This time it was a baleful
moan, and she got up to investigate.
She trailed the sound to Valerie's bedroom.
As Mrs. Percy stepped into the dark room, the beam of a flashlight caught her eyes. She
was blinded but got a peripheral glimpse of a man standing over Valerie's bed.
Mrs. Percy screamed and ran back to her own bedroom, pausing to activate a siren-style
burglar alarm atop the mansion.
As Charles Percy scrambled out of bed, Loraine ran back to Valerie. The intruder was gone.
She switched on a light that revealed a bloody mess in the girl's bed.
The young woman was wet with crimson from the crown of her head to below her navel. Her
nightgown was pulled up over her shoulders. She was alive, but just barely.
Charles Percy rushed to the phone to summon a neighbor, Dr. Robert Hohf. The physician was
at Valerie's side within minutes, but it was no use.
Hohf informed the family that Valerie was dead.
Bludgeoned in her bed
The homicide on Sept. 18, 1966, was a national sensation, and it would become America's
No. 1 murder mystery in its day.
An autopsy showed that Valerie had been bludgeoned on the head four times with a ball-peen
hammer, then stabbed a dozen times in the neck, chest and abdomen.
Her hands and feet bore signs of defensive wounds. She had died fighting.
The killer got in by scoring a door pane with a glass cutter - the crash that awakened
Loraine Percy. He apparently navigated his way through the 17-room mansion directly to
Valerie's bedroom.
Nothing was missing from the house.
Investigators found a few palm prints on a banister and fibers on Valerie's bed. They
scoured every inch of the 3-acre estate, but little physical evidence turned up, beyond a
few footprints. Loraine Percy was the only eyewitness, and her vague description of the
killer was of little help.
Kenilworth cops were accustomed to cat burglars, not murderers. The tiny, mile-square city
had not registered a single slaying in the 75 years since it was founded by Chicago retail
sales magnate Joseph Sears.
But it did not take an investigative genius to figure out the sequence of events.
Dr. Edward Kelliher, a crime psychiatrist in Chicago, told reporters, "The facts so far
revealed indicate that the murderer knew Valerie and that he went to her home for the
purpose of murdering her." He said the vicious nature of the crime showed "the murderer
wanted to attack her personally."
But who and why?
Charles Percy used his influence to call in battalions of investigators from both the
Chicago Police Department and Illinois State Police.
As always, cops began by eying those in the victim's family and social circles.
Twins Valerie and Sharon and brother Roger, 19, were the children of Charles Percy's first
wife, who had died at age 23 during a medical procedure from a toxic reaction to a
hospital-administered drug. Percy and Loraine had two children of their own, Gail, 13, and
Mark, 11.
Police judged the parents and siblings to be beyond suspicion.
Valerie had graduated Cornell University that spring and returned to Chicago to work on
her father's campaign.
Many campaign workers admitted they admired the attractive, bright young woman. She had,
in fact, dined with two young campaign colleagues the evening before her murder.
But try as they might, police could find no spurned lovers, no jealous boyfriends, no
resentful romantic third wheels.
The family's two servants were grilled. Chicago cops leaned on Windy City mobsters and
housebreaking crews for leads. Charles Percy's political opponents and business
relationships were scrutinized.
Yet no solid suspect turned up.
Kenilworth Police Chief Edward Eggert called the press together in the summer of 1968 for
a public accounting, after Sen. Percy put up a $50,000 reward.
"We have checked out 1,153 leads," he said. "In all, we have personally talked to about
8,000 persons in 48 states and five foreign countries - France, India, England, Africa and
Canada. We have taken 439 finger and palm prints and given voluntary polygraph tests to 41
subjects. As long as leads continue to come in, we're going to check them. We haven't
solved the case yet, but we're sure going to keep trying."
But soon the investigative team was pared down to two men, and even they gradually spent
diminishing time on the Percy murder.
The case lay dormant until 1973, when the Chicago Sun-Times published a series of stories
that named the reputed killer, a housebreaker named Frank Hohimer, 46.
Hohimer was by then serving a life sentence for a run of burglaries in Denver. He was
fingered by his brother, who told the reporters that Frank had confessed the crime to him.
Hohimer denied it in a jailhouse interview, and a friend dismissed the confession - if
there was one - as another tall tale by a chronic liar.
A second primary source was a Chicago crime syndicate figure who had died after giving an
interview to the Sun-Times.
And the secondary sources cited in the story were a trial lawyer's nightmare. One was a
jailbird who squealed that a cellmate from Chicago had given him information about the
Percy case before he died during an escape attempt. Another was a mug's girlfriend who was
bitter after being dumped.
Unanswered questions
The stories failed to explain why a career burglar would break into a mansion, commit a
murder with sexual overtones, then flee without loot.
The Sun-Times won a Pulitzer Prize for the reporting, but no criminal charge was brought
against anyone named in the stories.
Today, the Percy murder merits mention in the Chicago papers only on the obituary page,
when prominent detectives and reporters who worked the case die.
The Percy family has soldiered on over the years, despite the potential debilitating
specter of the unsolved murder.
In November 1966, two months after the slaying, Charles Percy was elected to the Senate.
Later that month, Valerie's twin, Sharon, announced her engagement to John D. (Jay)
Rockefeller 4th.
Each has lived a prominent life in Washington.
Charles Percy served as an Illinois senator for 18 years before he was unseated by Paul
Simon in 1984. Since then, he has headed a firm that helps locate technology parks in
developing nations. Now 85, the devout Christian Scientist was fit and active at last
word.
Sharon Percy Rockefeller raised four children and played the role of political wife as her
husband served as governor of West Virginia for a decade before moving to the U.S. Senate
in 1984.
Since 1989, she has been president and CEO of WETA, the public television and radio
stations in Washington.
She named her only daughter Valerie in memory of her slain twin.
Robert St. James (el corazon del demonio)
"Patty" <what's...@doc.com> wrote in message
news:89lPc.116568$vJ6....@cyclops.nntpserver.com...
> http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file/story/217714p-187324c.html
>
> Killed without a clue
> By DAVID J. KRAJICEK
> SPECIAL TO THE NEWS
> New York Daily News
> August 1, 2004
>
Ezboard has a section devoted to
it:http://p216.ezboard.com/fcrimeandjustice13552frm92.showMessage?topicID=67.topic
<...>
Very interesting case, Patty. One senses a nexus around these campaign workers.
Whoever did the job would have had to have carried a glass cutter w/them, a rather
unusual implement for a house-breaker. And they knew how to get to her room.
And they had dinner at the house that night. And I can't see any alibi ever being
mentioned for them.
> Many campaign workers admitted they admired the attractive, bright young woman.
She had,
> in fact, dined with two young campaign colleagues the evening before her murder.
10:00 pm Valerie and her step-mother, Loraine, finish having dinner with 2 young
campaign workers. Valerie goes up to her room.
<...>
ChicAGO sEPT. 21 THREE FORMER WORKERS IN THE pERCY CAMPAIGN FOR THE sENATE, WHO
WERE REPORTED BARRED FROM FURTHER VISITS IN THE PERCY HOME
(Further visits?)
WILL BE QUESTION IN THE INVESTIGATION OF THE MURDER OF MR PERCY DAUGHTER, VALERIE
21, IT WAS LEARNED TODAY.
SOURCES CLOSE TO THE INVESTIGATION SAID ONE OF THE FORMER PERCY AIDES WAS FIRED
SEVERAL WEEKS AGO FOR HEAVY DRINKING AND OBNOXIOUS BEHAVIOR. THE ACTION WAS TAKEN
AFTER REPEATED COMPLAINTS FROM OTHER WORKERS AT A CAMPAIGN OFFICE.
ANOTHER DEVELOPMENT IN THE CASE WAS THE REVELATION THE MR PERCY WAS THREATENED
WITH A ONE WAY RIDE IN A ANONYMOUS LETTER RECEIVED LAST MAY.
Also questioned were James Mann and Tully Friedman, friends of Valerie who had
eaten dinner with her in the Percy home that Saturday evening.
Mann and Friedman had been working with Valerie helping to organize youth
activities in Percy's campaign for senator.
Man and Friedman said they last saw Valerie when they left the Percy home at about
10:00 PM. Saturday, after the dinner party. Miss Percy is believed to have retired
to her bedroom at that time.
And these two guys went...where?
Wonder which one turned into the heavy drinker.
RstJ
EatWelBWel
and the Rockefellers they'd be searching for the "real killer" to this very
day? I am not certain but believe I read in atc years ago that it was a "family
member" who has since been "put away". Anyone remember?
Sandra
Volfie
"EatWelBWel" <eatwe...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20040802121030...@mb-m05.aol.com...
Sorta a la "Jack the Ripper" and The Royal Family?
Giselle (that's interesting)
Kris Baker
I think, if they'd had better crime scene forensics 40 years ago,
the case would have been easily solved.
I've never heard of anyone "put away" for it, but I've always
wondered if the evidence is still available.
Could they disinter Valerie Percy and do any DNA tests?
Kris
EatWelBWel
step sibs?
Sandra
OzzieAnnie
I recall the same comment here at atc, that those in the know knew
it was a family member who did it. I wonder why they didn't mention
Valerie's brother at the end of the article, as they did her father
and her sister.
I remember when this crime happened, had really shocking and creepy
feelings for a long time thereafter. Reminded me of the boogey man.
OAnn
gwa...@me.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJEwwkrLPmI&feature=youtu.be