Ellroy – White Jazz
public schools and played in their marching bands. But dark clouds were hovering: in August of 1955, “Richie” Herrick, 23, was arrested in Bakersfield: he sold marijuana and heroin-cocaine “goofballs” to an undercover police officer. Convicted of the offense, he was sentenced to four years in Chino Prison, a harsh sentence for a first offender, meted out by a judge anxious to establish a reputation for sternness.
Neighbors state that Richie’s imprisonment broke Joan Herrick’s heart. She began drinking and neglecting her charity work, and spent many hours alone listening to jazz records that Richie recommended to her in long letters from prison. In 1956 she attempted suicide; in September of 1957 Richie Herrick escaped from minimum-security Chino and remained at large, police believe, without ever contacting his mother. Joan Herrick went into what several acquaintances described as a “fugue state,” and on February 14th of this year committed suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills.
Postman Roger Denton: “What a godawful shame that so much awfulness was visited on one nice family. I remember when Mr. Herrick put those heavy leaded windows in. He hated noise, and now the police say those windows helped stifle the noise of that killer fiend doing his work. I’ll miss the Herricks and pray for them.”
EXPRESSIONS OF SHOCK AS POLICE
INVESTIGATION SPREADS OUT
Shock waves have spread through Hancock Park and indeed the entire Southland, and a memorial service for Christine and Laura Herrick drew hundreds at Occidental College, where they were both enrolled in graduate programs.
Locksmiths citywide have reported a tremendous business upswing; guard dog sales have doubled locally. Private security patrols for Hancock Park are being considered, and meanwhile police are jealously guarding investigatory information.
The Herrick investigation is being headed by Lieutenant David D. Klein, the commander of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Administrative Vice Division, recently in the news when a Federal witness he was guarding committed suicide in his presence. Lieutenant Klein has detached a half dozen men from the Department’s Internal Affairs Detail to work under him, along with his aide, Officer Sidney Riegle.
Chief of Detectives Edmund Exley defended his choice of Lieutenant Klein, 42, a 20 year officer with no Homicide Division experience. “Dave Klein is an attorney and a very savvy detective,” he said. “He has worked on a burglary case that may be tangentially connected, and he is very good at keeping evidence under wraps.
I want this case cleared, and so I have selected the best possible men to achieve that end.”
Lieutenant Klein addressed reporters at the LAPD Detective Bureau. “This investigation is proceeding rapidly,” he said, “and progress has been made. Many known associates of the Herrick family have been questioned and eliminated as suspects, and extensive canvassing of the area surrounding the murder scene yielded no eyewitnesses to the killer entering or leaving the Herrick home. We have eliminated robbery and revenge against the family as motives, and most importantly eliminated the Herrick’s Chino escapee son Richard as a suspect. He had been our initial major suspect, and we had issued an all-points-bulletin to aid in his capture, but we have now lifted that bulletin, although Richard Herrick is an escaped felon and we would very much like to talk to him. We are now centering our search on a sexual psychopath rumored to be seen near Hancock Park shortly before the killings. Although the three victims were not specifically sexually assaulted, the crime has the earmarks of being perpetrated by a sexual deviate. I, personally, am convinced that this man, whose name I cannot reveal, is the killer. We are making every effort to apprehend him.”
And, meanwhile, fear besieges the Southland. Police patrols in Hancock Park have been doubled and the current boom in home security measures continues.
A funeral service for Phillip, Laura and Christine Herrick will be held today at St. Basil’s Episcopal Church in Brentwood.
Side 170
Ellroy – White Jazz
L.A. _Times_, 11/21/58:
SOUTHSIDE CRIME WAVE AROUSES SUSPICION
Citing crime statistics and current rumors, U.S. Attorney Welles Noonan stated today that Southside Los Angeles is “boiling over with violent intrigue” that may well be “connected on some as yet undetermined level.”