The Indianapolis Star from Indianapolis, Indiana • Page 21

THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR SUNDAY. DECEMBER 18, 1977 PAGE 22 SEC. 1 Goods --r -w IT 7T ftm. sr 4 -2 VI 'A tSy -ill If x.i I -4, 5 Terhorst Atkinson Heiss 1st" 1318 NORTH LASALLE STREET, HOME OF GIERSE, HINSON Investigators Discuss Murders After Bodies Found In 1971 Dates Before Murders These are important dates in the sequence of events which may have led to the murders of three local businessmen in 1971. Feb.

1, 1971 Robert A. Gierse and Robert W. Hinson Jr. join the Executive Health Club. March 8, 1971 John C.

Terhorst's body found in Eagle Creek. May 11, 1971 James C. Barker joins the health club. 1971 Microfilm Service opens. Oct.

9, 1971 Robert Lee (Bobby) Atkinson found murdered. Nov. 29, 1971 Gierse, Hinson and Barker at the health club. Nov. 30, 1971 Barker seen alone at the club.

Nov. 30, 1971 Sometime in the late evening, or early the next morning, Gierse, Hinson and Barker are murdered. and told them and they said it was OK, everybody makes mistakes." Heiss recalled that he had lunched occasionally with the victims and stated with regard to the health club, "The boys were sold on the place. They did everything there. They would work out, drink, meet friends, just everything." Tomorrow Friend of New Jersey Cosa Nostra boss has an interest in THIS PERSON recalled, "It was one of the few times I ever saw Gierse and Hinson have a serious disagreement.

In fact, it got pretty heated, and I went to the bar and ordered us some beer. When I returned to the table Gierse finally said to Hinson, 'Just drop it. We'll talk about it Some particulars of the discussion were recalled. Two other persons not acquaintances of the victims of figures in the investigation but knowledgeable about the club for other reasons also described alleged fencing discussions at the club. A former girlfriend of one of the victims recalled they "made all their plans at the Executive Health Club." Another said Gierse and Hinson had mentioned stolen equipment "but were going to use it themselves." The stolen color TV Gierse had bought was obtained from a man in a Zionsville bar, friends recalled.

Gierse had returned to the bar by himself to pick it up because Hinson was out of town at the time. THE STOLEN typewriter turned up at the LaSalle house, sources said, and one source reported. "Gierse told me Barker stole the typewriter from Bell Howell." But there were indications the typewriter had come through the health club. Kane said he knew of no missing typewriter. Waymire, president of General Pump and Manufacturing was a business client of and a social friend of the victims who helped arrange for Gierse to join a Masonic lodge.

He posted a reward after the murders. Waymire said he recalled an occasion when he was at the LaSalle residence and a man attempted to sell Gierse a "hot" camera. He said he did not recall the man's name. Waymire stated that he was certain Gierse did not know the typewriter was stolen when he bought it but Gierse later had asked the man and was told it was "warm. But he kept the typewriter." WAYMIRE SAID he met Patrick L.

Dunbar through a mutual friend and Dunbar went on a hunting trip with them to Wyoming, but he did not recall introducing Dunbar to Gierse, Hinson or Barker. "He was a fence and made no bones about it." Waymire stated. "But I didn't like to be around him. I just don't deal in hot stuff because it's bad business." Dunbar, a former tavern owner and longtime associate of Flick whose criminal record included an arrest for murder in 1967, moved to Florida several years ago and died of cancer earlier this year. Sources established that Dunbar had been a major fence and had dealt in many commodities, including stolen diamonds.

When police examined the equipment in they found several machines whose serial numbers had been removed. Also found was an electric typewriter that had been stolen Sept. 5, 1971, in a burglary at Joseph Olinger and Associates, 215 East 34th Street. A PROGRESS report filed 11 days after the bodies were found noted that the investigation had turned up "several other leads of possible law violations," including burglaries, income tax violations and "possible interstate on stolen property to receiving (stolen property) and more." What is mentioned only briefly in any of the reports is the fact that city-owned equipment also was confiscated from This was a microfilm camera and a film processor, and although it was claimed that a city tag was affixed to at least one machine, the machine remained in the police property room until it was located by The Star. Detectives stated that they were aware that the city property had been given to but it had been mislabeled when it was brought to the property room.

BUT ANOTHER detective who had been involved in the investigation recalled that the question of the city equipment "came up and it was checked real quick. We were told not to worry about it." And another investigator said he was not even aware city-owned property had been found in Willard Heiss, who is charge of the city microfilm and records department, said he had given Gierse a microfilm camera to repair and also a film processor which was "junk." This was in August, 1971, Heiss stated. In April, Gierse had obtained a small, one-year contract to supply microfilm to the city. Heiss said he had asked police for more than a year and a half after the murders to return to him the microfilm camera and was told police did not have it. "But we desperately needed it so I went to the property room and got the camera, but I had to point it out to them," he said HEISS CONTENDED that he had made an arrangement with "because they would come in here and fix things, especially Gierse, and we wouldn't have to send the machines out to be fixed." The fact that had city property "was sort of embarrassing to me" after the murders, Heiss said.

"I went upstairs Brightening Jobless Picture Seen For U.S. During 1980s New York (AP) Though unemployment will remain a large problem, the United States should have an easier time absorbing job-seekers in the 1980s than in the 1970s, a recent study predicts. According to the Conference Board, a business-research group, this easing should occur because the nation's labor force will expand more slowly during the next 10 years. The report says that during the 1969-1976 period, an average of two million people joined the labor force each year. But it adds that the figure is expected to drop to about 1.7 million annually between now and 1980, and then decline to 1.4 million during the first half of the 1980s.

Therefore, the report says, the emerging labor force trend, combined with a predicted rise in the inflation-adjusted gross national product of at least 3.5 percent, should paint a brighter future for persons seeking employment. Dr. Leonard Lecht, author of the report, says a drop to about a 1.3 million annual increase in the early-1980s would create enough jobs to hold the unemployment rate to about 5 percent. The current unemployment rate is 6.9 percent. But Lecht cautions that a lack of sustained economic growth would impede the employment progress and transform "today's unemployed youth into unemployed adults in the 1980s." Continued From Page 1 Atkinson's body was dumped on a lover's lane in Morgan County.

Investigators established that Atkinson had been dating Jane Dickens Powers, who was also seeing Miroff at the time. She and Miroff presently are under indictment at Chicago for alleged syndicate-sponsored robberies. ONE OF THE MEN who was named by informants as one of the killers in the LaSalle Street murders also was identified by underworld contacts as being involved last summer in the slaying of gambling club boss Ronald G. (Junior) Grubbs, 35, according to an investigative agency. However, as is often the case, these informants are unwilling to testify because of the dangerous nature of the information, and indeed many persons interviewed by The Star requested even demanded anonymity.

In the case of one source, an informant was able to describe how one of the killers talked about the LaSalle Street murders and identified those who put out the "contract." This statement was given to an investigator and then repeated on tape for The Star. Gierse, it was learned, previously had bought other stolen items. One was a television set purchased at a Zionsville bar. Another was a stolen typewriter. IT WAS ALSO learned that Marion County Police detectives, in an unrelated investigation, received several statements contending that a prominent Teamsters union official had knowledge of the murders.

The detectives obtained separate statements from three persons, one of whom described how the union official had carried a pistol after the LaSalle slayings and commented that "eventually his name would come up on the list." Although this official denied any knowledge of the homicides, he is known to be close to one of the alleged killers who has been active in Teamsters affairs and once was arrested for selling stolen goods. Gierse, Hinson and Barker led complex lives in which their business and personal affairs crisscrossed, and they frequently crossed the line from legitimate business to the affairs of the underworld. Because some people who dealt with them also crossed this line, they are reluctant to talk. One man who knew about the stolen goods and clearly lied about it in an interview is not quoted in this story THE COMPLEXITY of the victims' lives was a problem for police because they originally faced an inundation of information and the question of too many possible motives. By far, police devoted most of their time to probing the victims' sexual affairs and business dealings.

It was established that all three men dated numerous women, some of them married, and were conducting a contest to see who could "score" the most. Gierse and Hinson, meantime, had left Records Security and taken valuable microfilming accounts with them at a time when the company was in a shaky financial posture Both men were covered by substantial insurance policies with the owner of Records Security, Theodore L'land, as the beneficiary. Added to this was the possibility that they had been killed by loansharks; that they could have owed debts to hoodlums dating back to when they lived in Chicago; that they dated women involved in narcotics, and evidence that some of their acquaintances were involved in making pornographic movies. POLICE QUESTIONED dozens of persons and subjected most of them to Polygraph (lie detector) tests. In all the evidence gathered by police, traces of the stolen goods transactions show up, but certain key witnesses were not questioned about them.

There is reason to believe that several microfilming machines which Gierse and Hinson obtained for actually had been stolen by Atkinson in a burglary at the Records Security office, then located at 752 East Market Street, on June 24, 1969, more than two years before the murders. This information, coupled with police evidence, suggests that Gierse and Hinson, trying to get equipment for their new business, ironically found out about machines which had been stolen from their former employer and stored probably in Chicago since the burglary. IT ALSO WAS established: Atkinson had been selling "hot" microfilm machines to Gierse and Hinson, according to a statement given to an investigative agency by someone associated with Atkinson. Gierse mentioned to a friend after Atkinson's body was found that "every time I get in touch with somebody, they end up dead." Machines that had been stolen earlier from a company where Gierse and Hinson had worked, Records Security ended up at BIB and had been temporarily in the basement of the LaSalle house, according to a person who saw the equipment. Gierse and Hinson had discussed the stolen equipment with several persons, and had told one that someone at the Executive Health Club had provided information about how to get it.

Two other sources were told about fencing deals discussed in the lounge during the same period when Gierse, Barker and Hinson were members of the club and frequent patrons of the lounge. All three victims frequented numerous bars, one of them Tommy's Starlight Palladium, 321S East Michigan Street, a tavern at which Flick maintained an office. It has been described as a fencing center. But it is not mentioned in police reports. Flick said he did not know any of the victims or anything about the murders.

A business client and close friend of the victims, William Waymire, had been friends with one of Flick's closest lieutenants, Patrick L. Dunbar Dunbar "was a fmre and made no bones about it," waymire commented, but said he did not believe he had introduced Dunbar to the victims. BtB also obtained several machines from the city microfilm department from BALDWIN You Can Get An Instant LaSalle home that night. The other two victims had been working at in the early evening hours. RECORDS SHOW that Gierse and Hinson, who both worked out with weights and spent considerable time shooting pool and in the lounge, joined the club on Feb.

1, 1971, through the sponsorship of a "Jim Ross." Barker joined the following May 11 under sponsorship of Gierse and Hinson. He also -became the roommate of Richard Roller, 35, the manager, but how this came about is not precisely clear. Kane, 57, who coordinates gambling junkets to the Dunes Hotel and Country Club, Las Vegas, owned the club at the time but said he barely knew the victims. Kane recalled that he talked to Gierse on the telephone about a complaint that the trio was drunk in the billiards room and threatened to have their memberships discontinued. A friend of Gierse's.

who had been close to hirrffor years, stated that in July Gierse had seemed upset one night and had explained that Kane offered to invest in the new business he and Hinson planned. KANE STATED, "Never in my life did I talk with Gierse about the business. I had no interest and it is completely erroneous. It is a figment of someone's imagination." Kane said his only financial transactions with any of the victims came when a partner in the club, David R. Roller.

56, Houston, Texas, who was Richard Roller's father, was killed in a Texas plane crash on March 28, 1971. Kane sold to Gierse furniture from an apartment the elder Roller maintained in Indianapolis after Roller's widow, Elaine, decided to move back to Texas. Kane said he arranged to sell the furniture to Gierse for $2,500 and later paid $100 to Gierse for a velvet chair of that furniture but never picked it up. He added that he had never been to the LaSalle house. KANE SAID HE knew of no relationship between any of the victims and Miroff, a longtime friend.

He added he had met the Powers woman on several occasions. Miroff visited the club and lounge frequently, often when a Las Vegas gambler, David (Butch) Goldstein, formerly of Indianapolis, stopped in. Goldstein is an executive of the Dunes and formerly ran the Indianapolis junkets to the Dunes. It also was established that bookmak-ing was conducted from the lounge when other gamblers frequented it. Previously, the lounge had been managed by Morris Mitchell, who is prominent in local gambling circles, but this was more than a year before the three victims joined.

Richard Roller was fired about a month before the murders, Kane recalled, and others said he returned to Texas. After the bodies were discovered, Kane said he telephoned Roller and told him, "It's good I fired you or there would be four dead." A CLOSE FRIEND of the three victims recalled seeing microfilming machines, reportedly from Records Security, in the basement of the LaSalle house several months before the murders and described an argument Gierse had with another man over the machines. A former business associate, who also had dealt with the victims socially, said he also learned that certain machines were in reality Records Security equipment. Uland, the owner of Records Security, which since has been sold, declined to be interviewed. Another friend of Gierse and Hinson stated that Gierse had told how he had arranged with a person at the health club to get machines for at a time when Gierse was in preliminary planning for the new company, in the summer of 1971.

This source said Gierse at the same time mentioned the $100,000 loan, equipment being brought in from Chicago, and, after Atkinson turned up murdered, that "every time I get in touch with someone they end up dead." THIS PERSON could recall nothing unusual in the conduct of Gierse, Barker or Hinson when there was publicity about Terhorst's murder earlier in the year. However, another friend recalled that Gierse acted "strange" at the time. Yet another friend recalled discussion about the loan and said Gierse had remarked that he "only needed $25,000 to get the business started." When Gierse got the first payment, the friend said, he asked Gierse if he also received the remainder and was told, "Just enough to get the business started and then he said he would get the rest when he delivered He said he did not ask Gierse what he meant about delivering The argument in which Miroff's name was mentioned occurred about two to three weeks before the murders, in a Westside bar, according to a friend and sometime business associate of the victims. under curious circumstances one as "junk" and they sat unidentified in the police property room three years. Terhorst, according to informed sources, had been involved in stolen machine transactions with Gierse and Hinson.

ALTHOUGH SOME business associates of the victims claimed that equipment was of generally poor quality and some machines had been provided on loan from companies for whom they were processing microfilm, sources said the machines and other office equipment were valued at close to $15,000. In the case of Terhorst, it first was suspected that Atkinson was the "Bobby" whom Terhorst had gone to meet in Woodruff Place before he disappeared. Terhorst had dealt with the LaSalle victims on a normal business basis, it was established. Terhorst, a sports car buff, was last seen alive after telling a friend he was going to Woodruff Place to meet a man named Bobby in an attempt to sell a valuable Corvette Terhorst owned. The car disappeared without a trace and Terhorst's body was found in Eagle Creek.

Detectives added there was no question Terhorst was lured to the Woodruff Place meeting to murder him. INVESTIGATORS established that Terhorst was a link in the stolen machines with Gierse and Hinson but neither Atkinson nor Hinson was the person Terhorst had gone to meet. Gierse and Hinson were questioned briefly after Terhorst's death. Nevertheless, a friend of Gierse and Hinson told reporters he recalled Hinson had gone to meet a man in Woodruff Place about a car and had come back later saying the man did not show up. Atkinson, 900 block of North College Avenue, allegedly was a member of a burglary gang which had been working throughout Central Indiana and which included men who told federal investigators they had been supplying stolen guns to Flick and one of his lieutenants, James R.

Pierce. Pierce, a near-Eastside used car dealer, pleaded guilty in 1971 to a federal charge of dealing in firearms without a license. AUTHORITIES identified members of the ring as Atkinson, Wilbur Dale Apple-gate, a Flick associate, and Hershial T. Barrick, 40, who died in 1974 of an alleged drug overdose. Applegate later was listed as a state's witness against Flick in a 1975 conspiracy indictment for an alleged 1970 "contract" murder of a burglar, but the indictment was dismissed on a ruling it had been filed past the statute of limitations.

Flick was identified by the FBI as an organized crime figure in 1975. Investigators established that Atkinson was also a major shoplifter and had been living with the Powers woman at an apartment in Woodruff Place. At the time of Atkinson's murder, she was free on bond while appealing a murder conviction in the death of her husband. According to police, the Powers woman, Miroff and Applegate all had been arrested together for shoplifting in Illinois. THE NIGHT BEFORE Atkinson's body was found, police said, Mrs.

Powers had been to Miroff's apartment on the Northside. Both established alibis which were checked out, police added. The Star established that Flick and Miroff had private meetings. The subject was not known. Flick stated in an interview that he knew Miroff only slightly.

He also said he did not recall Gierse, Hinson and Barker at Tommy's Starlight Palladium. Before starting Gierse and Hinson worked for the Logansport-based Records Security while Barker was a salesman for Bell Howell at Chicago and then moved to Indianapolis and worked for Bell Howell. Gierse and Hinson lived at the LaSalle address while Barker had lived at 710 North Riley Avenue and moved to 1535 North Rural Street before the murders. While Gierse still was with Records Security, Hinson left the company to start at the 10th Street location. ALL THREE MEN were husky, hard-drinking individuals who liked to visit low-class bars and were not averse to fighting.

But in the days before the murders, persons who saw and talked to them generally saw no signs that anything might be wrong. On Dec. 1, 1971, the men failed to show up for work. A friend went to LaSalle and discovered the grisly murders. All three men had been bound with cord or cloth and had their throats slit.

Hinson also had a fractured skull. The trio had been at the Executive Health Club (since renamed and under new management) the night of Nov 29 and Barker also was seen, evidently alone, at the club in the early evening of Nov. 30, possibly about six hours before the slayings. Police established that it was likely Barker was the last to arrive at the "CASH" REBATE When We Deliver Any NEW PIANO or ORGAN In addition to our already Low Discounted Prices we will deliver $75.00 to $300.00 Cosh with any Piano or Organ purchased between now and December 24th. The Bench Is Included In Your Purchase of Piano or Organ 1-5-10 Year Warranties Available! Reg.

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