• U.S.

CRIME: Percy Lead No. 273

5 minute read
TIME

One morning in the midst of his successful 1966 bid for a seat in the U.S. Senate, Illinois’ Charles H. Percy was awakened by his wife’s screams. He set off the piercing burglar alarm atop their 17-room mansion in Kenilworth, a suburb of Chicago. When he entered the bedroom of his 21-year-old twin daughter Valerie, the girl lay agonizingly near death—her face, chest and stomach mutilated by stab wounds. In the seven years since the slaying, Illinois state police have interviewed more than 14,000 people, spent over $300,000, and painstakingly pursued 1,317 leads. Last week the search zeroed in on one of these, lead No. 273, and for the first time, investigators were all but certain that at last they were on the trail of the killer or killers.

The suspects are Francis Leroy Hohimer, 46, now serving sentences totaling 30 years for armed robbery in the Iowa state penitentiary, and Frederick Malchow, a onetime crony of Hohimer’s who died one year after the murder in a plunge from a railroad trestle after a Pennsylvania jailbreak. The two men were members of what authorities believe was a Mafia-backed band of thieves that flourished nationwide from 1965 to 1967, specializing in robbing the homes of the wealthy. In exchange for a cut of two-thirds of the gang’s take, the Mafia offered planning expertise as well as a fence for disposal of stolen furs, jewels and other valuables. In its heyday, the gang roamed from coast to coast, hitting homes in wealthy spots like Grosse Point, .Mich., Shaker Heights, Ohio, Scottsdale, Ariz., as well as choice residential targets in Denver and Beverly Hills, Calif.

King-Size Heists. The group operated with almost military precision: garbed in black, wearing black ski masks, carrying elaborate tools and sometimes even walkie-talkies, the burglars were noted among police experts for their stealth, daring and king-size heists. Chicago detectives are certain of at least 30 jobs the gang pulled, with a haul that exceeded $3,000,000. Indeed, the outfit’s sleek style is what drew the attention of police investigating the Percy murder. Moreover, the gang was known to have two members—Hohimer and Malchow—vicious enough to have killed Valerie Percy.

Both men joined the gang around 1965. Hohimer was a career burglar with 22 arrests on his record, twelve of them for burglary and robbery. He also showed a marked penchant for violence. His favorite weapon on heists was a propane blowtorch, which he used not simply as an entry tool but also to coerce reluctant robbery victims by threatening to burn off their hair. Hohimer’s former wife told police that he once cut off her hair while in a jealous rage and on another occasion emptied a revolver in a circular pattern around their infant daughter as a warning that she should pay more attention to him. Malchow had been arrested 25 times on such charges as rape and assault, and like Hohimer, he was not averse to manhandling victims.

Hohimer was first fingered early last year by Leo Rugendorf, 58, a Mafia operative who oversaw the gang’s activities. He reached Chicago Sun-Times Reporter Art Petacque and reported that Hohimer, shortly after the murder, had said to him: “They’ll get me for the Valerie Percy murder. The girl woke up, and I hit her on the top of the head with a pistol.” After Petacque interviewed Rugendorf, he arranged for him to be questioned by state police investigators. Early this year, Rugendorf, near death from heart disease and diabetes, again fingered Hohimer, this time from a stretcher in a courtroom where he was a defense witness in the robbery trial of another gang figure. Attempting to discredit some of Hohimer’s testimony against him, Rugendorf asked the judge to come close to the stretcher and whispered to him: “Hohimer is the fellow that killed Percy’s daughter. You got that from me.” Rugendorf died one month later.

Nervous and Uptight. Hohimer’s brother Harold, 38, corroborated Rugendorf s claim when he got in touch with Petacque four weeks ago to describe a meeting with a “real nervous and uptight” Hohimer the day after the murder. “He said he had to ‘off a girl,” Harold told the reporter. “I asked him why he had to do someone in, and he said it was because the girl made a lot of noise and they got in a fight. I asked him, ‘What score are you talking about?’ and he said, ‘It’s all in the newspapers and on the radio today.’ He was talking about the Valerie Percy thing.” Last week Robert Stanfield, 29, an acquaintance of Hohimer’s, came forward to disclose that Hohimer had informed him two weeks before the murder that he had cased the mansion and intended to rob the Percys.

Hohimer, for his part, broke his silence three weeks ago and answered questions put to him by Petacque and investigators about the Percy killing. He denied not only the murder of Valerie but also his presence on the scene that night. Instead, he accused Malchow, insisting that Malchow came to his apartment the morning of the crime in clothes that were soaked with blood.

In the flurry of charges and countercharges, the case has come down to a cruel stalemate. The strongest piece of physical evidence in the crime is four palm prints found in the Percy mansion, but they have proved not to be Hohimer’s or Malchow’s. The remaining physical evidence is scant and ambiguous, and none of it directly links either Hohimer or Malchow to the crime. Yet by the testimony of witnesses, one of the members of the burglary gang is the likely killer. Said William Hanhardt, commander of the Chicago police department’s burglary division: “Malchow and Hohimer are the ones. They’re responsible. I have no doubts about it.”

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