Further reading for The Lipstick Killer & The Kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby
The Lindbergh Kidnapping Suspect No. 1: The Man Who Got Away
Born on the cusp of the great depression in 1928, William Heirens was brought up in a poverty stricken home with parents who spent most of their time arguing. As a way to cope with sad world around him, Heirens would go out wandering the street starting at a young age and soon found entertainment in the form of petty theft.
Theft really started for Heirens around the age of 12, when working at a store he shorted his money drawer and to make up for it he stole a dollar bill from an apartment by reaching through the crack in the chained door. This first experience ofcoarse led to bigger sums and soon personal items being taken, soon he had a collection of items all of them expensive, some of them mundane.
His first arrest came at the age of 13, he was caught breaking into the basement of a local building and was soon sent away to a boys correctional school. Heirens thrived at the school, qualifying for college courses in electrical engineering at the University of Chicago before he even hit the age of 16. Even the promise of a great career couldnt stop Heirens need to steal though and he soon returned to his old crimes and soon to be worse crimes.
It was on June 5, 1945 that a 43 year old Josephine Ross was found murdered inside her Chicago apartment, she had been stabbed repeatedly, he body had been washed and tape had been placed on the stab wounds and a skirt wrapped around her neck. The police surmised that she had been killed by an intruder, one who had most likely been there to burgle her house but was surprised to by her before he was able to get the job done.
December 10, 1945 32 year old Frances Brown was found in the bathroom of her apartment, she had a knife lodged in her neck and a bullet wound to her head. Her head as well was wrapped, the police found a smudged fingerprint on the door jam to the apartment and written on the wall in lipstick was “For heavens Sake catch me before I kill more I can not control myself”
The saddest of all was the morning of January 7, 1946. This was the day that 6 year old Suzanne Degnan was found to be missing from her first floor bedroom. Police found a ladder and a ransom note outside of her window “Get $20,000 ready & wait for my word. Do not notify the FBI or police. Bills are to be in 5’s &10’s. Burn this for her safety.
Acting on an anonymous tip, the police found Degnan’s head in a sewer just a block from her house, her right leg was found in a basin and her torso, in a storm drain, and finally her left leg in another storm drain.
It was his need to steal that got Heirens caught, as he reached into an open apartment in the same upscale neighborhood that he had taken Suzanne from, another tenant saw him and called the police. The arrested him and after four days of grueling questioning he began to confess.
For the next 65 years Heirens would be incarcerated and live in a max security prison, he attempted suicide 3 times and maintain his innocence until he died at the age of 83.
Then we were told the age old story of the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh’s baby, this was a huge fascinating case that still has never been solved.
Episode 119
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