William Heirens
William George Heirens was an American criminal who forcibly confessed to three murders. He was subsequently convicted of the crimes in 1946. Heirens was called the Lipstick Killer after a notorious message scrawled in lipstick at a crime scene. At the time of his death, Heirens was reputedly Illinois' longest-serving prisoner, having spent 65 years in prison.
He spent the later years of his sentence at the Dixon Correctional Center in Dixon, Illinois. Though he remained imprisoned until his death, Heirens had recanted his confession and claimed to be a victim of coercive interrogation and police brutality.
Charles Einstein wrote a novel called The Bloody Spur about Heirens, published in 1953 which was adapted into the 1956 film While the City Sleeps by Fritz Lang.
On March 5, 2012, Heirens died at the age of 83 at the University of Illinois Medical Center from complications arising from diabetes.
His story was the subject of a 2018 episode of the Investigation Discovery series A Crime to Remember.
Early life
Heirens grew up in Lincolnwood, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. He was the son of George and Margaret Heirens. George Heirens was the son of immigrants from Luxembourg and Margaret was a homemaker. His family was poor and his parents argued incessantly, leading Heirens to wander the streets to avoid hearing them. He took to crime and later claimed that he mostly stole for fun and to release tension. He never sold what he had stolen.At age 13, Heirens was arrested for carrying a loaded gun. A subsequent search of the Heirenses' home discovered a number of stolen weapons hidden in a storage shed on the roof of a nearby building, along with furs, suits, cameras, radios, and jewelry he had stolen. Heirens confessed to 11 burglaries and was sent to the Gibault School for wayward boys for several months.
Soon after, he was arrested for theft and sentenced to three years at the St. Bede Academy, where he was an exceptional student. He was accepted into University of Chicago's special learning program just before his release in 1945 at age 16.
To pay his expenses he worked several evenings a week as an usher and docent; he also resumed committing burglaries.
A classmate remembers him as being popular with girls.
Murders
Josephine Ross
On June 5, 1945, 43-year-old Josephine Ross was found dead in her Chicago apartment. She had been repeatedly stabbed, and her head was wrapped in a dress. Dark hairs were clutched in her hand. No valuables were taken from the apartment. Police were unable to identify a dark-haired man reportedly seen fleeing the building.Frances Brown
On December 10, 1945, Frances Brown was discovered in her apartment with a knife lodged in her neck and bullet wound to the head. Nothing was taken, but a message was written in lipstick on the wall: "For heAVens SAKe cAtch me BeFore I Kill More I cAnnot control MyselF."Police found a bloody fingerprint smudge on the doorjamb of the entrance door. A witness heard gunshots around 4 a.m., and the building's night clerk said that a nervous-looking man of 35 to 40 years old and weighing 140 pounds, exited the elevator and left the building around that time. At one point, Chicago police announced that they had reason to believe that the killer was a woman.
Suzanne Degnan
On January 7, 1946, six-year-old Suzanne Degnan was discovered missing from her first-floor bedroom in Edgewater, Chicago. Police found a ladder outside her window and a ransom note: "Get $20,000 ready & wait for my word. Do not notify the FBI or police. Bills are in 5's & 10's. Burn this for her safety." A man repeatedly called the Degnan residence demanding the ransom.Chicago mayor Edward Kelly also received a note:
This is to tell you how sorry I am not to not get ole Degnan instead of his girl. Roosevelt and the OPA made their own laws. Why shouldn't I and a lot more?At the time, there was a nationwide meatpackers' strike and the Office of Price Administration was talking of extending rationing to dairy products. Degnan was a senior OPA executive recently transferred to Chicago. Another executive of the OPA had been recently assigned armed guards after receiving threats against his children and, in Chicago, a man involved with black market meat had recently been murdered by decapitation. Police considered the possibility that the Degnan killer was a meat packer.
Acting on an anonymous tip, police discovered Degnan's head in a sewer a block from the Degnan residence, her right leg in a catch basin, her torso in another storm drain and her left leg in another drain. Her arms were found a month later in another sewer after her other remains had already been interred. Blood was found in the drains of laundry tubs in the basement laundry room of a nearby apartment building.
Police questioned hundreds of people, administered polygraph examinations to about 170 and several times claimed to have captured the killer, although all were eventually released.
Witnesses
The coroner fixed the time of death at between 12:30 and 1:00 a.m. and stated that a very sharp knife had been used to expertly dismember the body. A basement laundry room near the Degnans' home was located, in which it appeared that Degnan had been dismembered, although it was determined that she was already dead when she was taken there. A coroner's expert stated that the killer was "either a man who worked in a profession that required the study of anatomy or one with a background in dissection... not even the average doctor could be as skillful, it had to be a meat cutter"; the coroner added that it was a "very clean job with absolutely no signs of hacking."Hector Verburgh arrest
65-year-old Hector Verburgh, a janitor in the building where Degnan lived, was arrested and treated as the suspect. Police told the press "This is the man," despite discrepancies between Verburgh's profile and that which the police had developed regarding the skills of the killer, including his surgical knowledge or experience as a butcher. Police noted that Verburgh had frequented the so-called "murder room" and the grimy state of the ransom note suggested that it had been written by a dirty hand such as that of a janitor. The police pressured Verburgh's wife to implicate her husband in the murder.Police held Verburgh for 48 hours of questioning and beatings that severely injured him, including a separated shoulder. He spent ten days in the hospital. Throughout, Verburgh denied involvement in the murder. Verburgh's janitors' union lawyer secured Verburgh's release on a writ of habeas corpus. Verburgh said of the experience:
Oh, they hanged me up, they blindfolded me... I can't put up my arms; they are sore. They had handcuffs on me for hours and hours. They threw me in the cell and blindfolded me. They handcuffed my hands behind my back and pulled me up on bars until my toes touched the floor. I no eat. I go to the hospital. Oh, I am so sick. Any more and I would have confessed to anything.
It was determined that Verburgh, a Belgian immigrant, could not write in English well enough to have penned even the crudely written ransom note. He successfully sued the Chicago Police Department for $15,000 and his wife received $5,000.
Sidney Sherman investigation
Another notable false lead was that of Sidney Sherman, a recently discharged Marine who had served in World War II. Police had found blond hairs in the back of the Degnan apartment building and nearby was a wire that authorities suspected could have been used as a garrote to strangle Suzanne Degnan. Near that was a handkerchief that the police suspected might have been used as a gag to keep Degnan quiet. On the handkerchief was a laundry-mark name: S. Sherman. The police hoped that perhaps the killer had erred in leaving it behind. They searched military records and discovered that a Sidney Sherman lived at the Hyde Park YMCA. The police sought him for questioning but discovered that he had vacated the residence without notice and had quit his job without collecting his final paycheck.A nationwide manhunt ensued and Sherman was found four days later in Toledo, Ohio. He denied ownership of the handkerchief and explained under interrogation that he had eloped with his girlfriend. Sherman passed a polygraph test and was later cleared. The handkerchief's true owner, Seymour Sherman of New York City, was eventually found. He had been abroad when Degnan was murdered and did not know why the handkerchief was found in Chicago. The presence of the handkerchief was determined to be a coincidence.