Highlighted Crime
Story of the Week -
On September 18, 1959, Lonely Hearts killer, Harvey
Glatman was executed in California’s gas chamber for murdering three young
women in Los Angeles. Resisting all appeals to save his life, Glatman even
wrote to the appeals board to say, “I only want to die.”
Glatman developed an obsession with rope as a young child
and when his parents noticed that he was strangling himself on occasion, they
took him to a doctor who told them that it was just a phase and that he would
grow out of it. As a teenager, he threatened a girl with a toy gun in Colorado.
Skipping bail, he made his way to New York, where he later spent several years in
prison on robbery charges.
Following his release, Glatman moved to Colorado and then
Los Angeles, opened a television repair shop and took up photography as a hobby.
On August 1, 1957, he combined these two interests in a sinister way. On the
pretense of a freelance modeling assignment, Glatman lured 19-year-old Judy Ann
Dull to his apartment, where he raped her and then took photos of her, bound
and gagged. He then drove her out to the desert east of Los Angeles and
strangled her to death. By the time Dull’s body was found, there were no clues
linking the crime to Glatman.
Back in Los Angeles, Glatman posted the pictures of Dull
on his walls and became further obsessed with rape and murder. His next victim
was Shirley Ann Bridgeford, whom he also strangled to death in the desert. In
July 1958, Glatman struck again, following the same twisted procedure but in
October, his luck ran out.
Lorraine Vigil, who answered one of Glatman’s modeling
ads, was driving with him to his studio when she noticed that he was heading
out of the city. She began to struggle with Glatman near an off ramp in south
Orange County. Glatman pulled out a pistol and tried to tie her hands. After
being shot through the hip, Vigil was able to wrestle the gun away from him. In
the ensuing struggle, they both tumbled out of the car–just as a highway patrol
officer drove past. Glatman was arrested and confessed to the three murders,
seeming to delight in recounting his sadistic crimes. His trial lasted a mere
three days before he was sent off to San Quentin to die.
Check back every
Monday for a new installment of “This Week in Crime History.”
Michael Thomas Barry is a columnist for www.crimemagazine.com and is the author
of six nonfiction books that includes the award winning Murder and Mayhem 52 Crimes that Shocked Early California 1849-1949.
Visit Michael’s website www.michaelthomasbarry.com
for more information. His book can be purchased from Amazon through the
following link:
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