Highlighted Crime
Story of the Week -
On February 12, 1976, actor Sal Mineo was stabbed to
death in Hollywood, California. Mineo was walking behind his apartment when
neighbors heard his screams for help. Some described a white man with brown
hair fleeing the scene. Mineo was a famous teen actor in the 1950s. He
co-starred with James Dean in both Rebel without
a Cause and Giant. The transition
to adult roles did not come easily for Mineo, but he later appeared in small
roles in such films as The Longest Day
and Escape from the Planet of the Apes,
and consistently performed guest spots on television series. On the night he
was killed, Mineo was returning from rehearsing for a play.
For two years, the police searched in vain for clues to
the killer’s identity. At first, they suspected that Mineo’s work for prison
reform had put him in contact with dangerous felons. Then their focus shifted
to Mineo’s personal life. Investigators had discovered that his home was filled
with pictures of nude men but the homosexual pornography also failed to turn up
any leads.
Then, out of the blue, Michigan authorities reported that
Lionel Williams, arrested on bad check charges, was bragging to cellmates that
he had killed Mineo. Although he later retracted his stories, at about the same
time, Williams’ wife in Los Angeles told police that he had come home the night
of the murder drenched in blood. However, there was one major discrepancy, Williams
was black with an Afro and all of the eyewitnesses had described the
perpetrator as a white man with long brown hair.
Fortunately, the police were able to unearth an old photo
of Williams in which his hair had been dyed brown and processed so that it was
straight and long. In addition, the medical examiner had made a cast of Mineo’s
knife wound and police were able to match it to the description of the knife
provided by Williams’ wife. Lionel Williams was convicted of murdering Mineo
and sentenced to life in prison.
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 seven nonfiction books that includes the soon to be released In the Company of Evil Thirty Years of
California Crime 1950-1980 and 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 links:
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