Addressing a Saturday night rally of campaign workers, the candidate could not resist a word of praise for his daughter. "Valerie," he said, "is my best precinct worker." Charles Harting Percy was not simply indulging his paternal pride. In his hard-hitting campaign to unseat Illinois' three-term Democratic Senator Paul Douglas, 74, comely, honey-haired Valerie Percy, 21, a June graduate of Cornell, proved one of Chuck Percy's doughtiest aides. With sunny enthusiasm that made the task seem effortless, she recruited and coordinated hundreds of youthful Percy-for-Senator volunteers, helped set up 22 campaign centers in the Chicago area, made dozens of warm little speeches for her father. She toured the wards wearing a winsome smile and a button that said, "HI! I'm Valerie Percy—Chuck's My Dad."
About midnight, five hours after his ad-libbed tribute to Valerie, Chuck Percy wearily returned to his $230,000, three-acre estate, Windward, on the Lake Michigan shore in Chicago's elegant suburb of Kenilworth. Valerie was in her bedroom watching television. She had decided earlier that day not to attend a "Dance-for-Percy" party on the North Shore; she dined at home with two young men who were working for the campaign, and retired shortly after 10 p.m. Her twin sister Sharon was in another room. Another of Percy's daughters, Gail, 13, was asleep; his sons, Roger, 19, and Mark, 11, were away. Percy and his wife Loraine looked at a late TV show, went to their master bedroom, and turned out the light at about 1:30 a.m.
"She Is Dead." About 31 hours later, Loraine Percy was partially aroused by the sound of tinkling glass and brief, faint, clicking sounds. Assuming that one of her children had knocked over a drinking glass, she sank back into sleep. Minutes later she was awakened again by a deep, agonized moaning. Mrs. Percy leaped out of bed and followed the sound down the hallway to Valerie's room. Inside, she saw a shadowy figure bent over Valerie's bed. The intruder instantly straightened up, whirled about and transfixed Loraine Percy in the blinding glare of a powerful flashlight. Screaming, she ran back to the master bedroom, where she punched a wall button that set off a rooftop burglar-alarm siren.
Her husband at once ran to Valerie's room and switched on the lights. The girl, piteously mutilated, lay blood-soaked and inert. Loraine Percy felt a faint pulse. While she swabbed the blood from Valerie's face with a pillowcase, Chuck Percy telephoned Dr. Robert P. Hohf, a neighbor.
The doctor arrived minutes later, at about 5:10 a.m. He found that Valerie had been stabbed six times around her nose and left eye, once in the neck, twice in the chest and twice in the stomach. There were four cone-shaped puncture wounds in her skull, all caused by heavy, bludgeon-like blows. Dr. Hohf slowly descended the circular staircase to the living room where Percy, Loraine, Sharon and Gail sat in wordless shock. Percy rose, and Hohf said: "Valerie is gone. She is dead."
Intruder's Path. Investigating their first murder case since Kenilworth (pop. 2,789) was incorporated 70 years ago, patrolmen from the eleven-man police force were joined by Chicago detectives and crime-laboratory experts,