1/26/66:
Boss psychic Peter Hurkos weighs in. He groks Andy Prine as the killer. He groks David Lange as the backup suspect. Hurkos met Prine and Lange at Glenn Ford’s house. Karyn said she’d flick up Andy’s career if he left her. Hurkos calls that the murder motive.
1/31/66:
A female psychic fondles Karyn’s jewelry. She gets a brainstorm.
It was a contract hit out of Chicago. The killer looked Jewish or Italian. He had dark hair and a broad forehead.
The psychic shit went nowhere. They discontinued it. They reinterviewed most of the key witnesses. They pressed the case all the way through ’66.
They went at Andy Prine. They braced him on 11/2/66. Bobby Chapman and Lieutenant Norm Hamilton went at him hard.
Prine stuck to his story. Chapman tried to shoot it down. He pressed one theory–hard.
It’s 11/27/63. Andy drops off the actress chick. He doesn’t try to flick the actress chick. He wants to break it off with Karyn–for keeps. He goes to her pad. Things escalate. Karyn dies in the process.
Prine stuck to his story. He didn’t try to fuck the actress chick. He wasn’t that hard up for cooze. He didn’t want to cut off Karyn. He dug her as a sometime thing. She never said she’d fuck up his career. The bad publicity fucked him. That was the only way he got fucked.
11/14/66:
Edward Rubin calls Sheriff’s Homicide. He changes his story substantially.
It’s 11/27/63. He leaves Karyn’s place. He’s with Bob Hathaway.
They go to the Raincheck Room. Bob takes off alone. Rubin meets two chicks. He can’t remember their names. They drive him home. They’ve got a ’57 Austin-Healey. He asks one chick for a date. She turns him down. She’s leaving for New Mexico U in the morning.
Bobby Chapman tried to verify the story. He couldn’t get a line on the chicks.
Strange:
Rubin did not recall the chicks three days after the crime. He recalled them three years later.
12/7/66:
Chapman braces Bob Hathaway. He refutes Rubin’s revised statement. He revises his own statement substantially.
He said the big bull session was a big non sequitur. Andy never dropped by and stayed that long.
12/14/66:
Chapman braces Edward Rubin. He dittoes Hathaway. It did seem strange that Andy stayed that long.
The case dragged on. A lot of the cops thought it wasn’t even a murder. Bobby Chapman transferred out. Bobby Morck and Vince Bogdanich got the case. Morck thought it wasn’t a murder. Bogdanich wasn’t sure. They checked out leads anyway.
Bogdanich braced David Lange on 7/2 3/68. Lange stuck by his ’63 story. He refused to take a second polygraph test–on advice of legal counsel. Bogdanich thought he was a viable suspect.
The leads trickled out. They worked other jobs. They worked the Kupcinet job as tips materialized. They braced David Lange on 9/I 7/69.
Lange had a gig at Paramount. Morck and Bogdanich braced him at his office. He cooperated. They asked him if he’d take another polygraph. Lange said he’d talk to his lawyer.
His lawyer called the boss at Sheriff’s Homicide. He said: Mr. Lange would not take another polygraph test.
The Karyn Kupcinet case was five years, nine months, and twenty-three days old. It was a freak show and a heartache. A woman got lost in the uproar.
2
The Victim
It was Kup’s town. The funeral was Kup’s Show.
The heavies turned out. Governor Kerner, aldermen, Mayor Richard J. Daley. They rode at the front of the car-line. Karyn’s friends rode at the back.
12/4/63:
Temple Sholom on the Gold Coast. Adios, Karyn–it was too damn brief.
Fifteen hundred people. Major coverage. A big egalitarian spin.
Ward heelers weep. Hoodlums hurl tears into their hankies. Hipsters hobnob with hackles and schvartze waiters from the Pump Room.
It’s a mob scene. It’s a mitzvah for a media man and his moviemad daughter. It plays nine days after the JFK entombment.
Andy Prine did not attend the service. Rabbi Louis Binstock emceed. He praised Karyn. He said she was “high above the stage, with her warmth of manner and a glow in her eyes.”
An all-star lineup lugged the casket out to the hearse. Among them: ex-Chicago Bears quarterback Sid Luckman.