St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 147

June 10, 1984 ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH EllPlEH (ft 0S3i jl were the only pieces of physical evidence found with the body. Those items led police nowhere. The girl's grisly death has received national publicity and attention, which in turn has prompted telephone calls and offers of information from several persons claiming psychic powers. The self-styled psychics have been of no use, said homicide commander Adkins.

By John M. McGuire Of the Post-Dispatch Staff FIRST OF TWO ARTICLES Lee Lankford was relaxing at home one night when something on the television screen caught his attention. "When they showed him on TV, I came right out of the chair," said Lankford, a Richmond Heights police captain. 'That's the I said." Around the same time, two men in Irving, Texas, were having a similar experience. They saw the bespectacled man with long blond hair as television Detectives Riley, Joe Burgoon and Wayne Bender, murdered Elizabeth Cook? Who strangled Jeannie Klocker and set fire to her apartment? ir ir ir In the '60s, only one in 10 murders went unsolved in the United States.

Today, the figure is one in four killings, and criminologists say that the blame does not lie with shoddy police work. The criminologists describe the phenomenon as "the new American homicide." Murder has changed, they say. Killings that result from family quarrels or fights between acquaintances have declined as a percentage of the total, and now we have more puzzling murders: the so-called serial killings, by murderers who kill randomly, frequently without motive, in wildly scattered parts of the country. Murders committed for reasons other than the commonplace motives of jealousy, greed and revenge. cameras filmed him after his arraignment in the It was the first day of deer hunting season, detectives recall Nov.

15, 1980. It was raining and cold that night in the quiet streets of St. Louis Hills, a mostly upper middle class neighborhood so neat and clean that it looks like a set for a situation comedy. Francis Park is nearby. In the 6200 block of Walsh Street, someone did report hearing a noise, like gunshots.

The neighbor had been standing on her front porch, saying goodbye to a guest, when she heard what she thought was a shot. It was about 1 1 5 a.m. She looked, but did not see anything. Consolino's blue 1979 Oldsmobile Cutlass was idling near Ellen Dooling's house; it was 4 o'clock in the morning when her father went to investigate. His daughter had been shot once in the forehead with a weapon.

Her body fell from the car. Consolino had a similar wound in the left temple. Both shots had been fired through the closed window on the driver's side. Nothing had been taken and there were no signs that either had been molested. They had been seeing each other for about a month, and had met at the Sears, Roebuck store in Crestwood Plaza, where Ellen Dooling was a part-time employee.

"Gary had a brilliant mind, just a super kid with a great future," say police officers. After his death, Consolino's parents found a book of his poetry. It was titled, "I hear, I See, I Feel, I Know." The late Norman Jacobsmeyer, who was the homicide commander, thought that the killer knew one murders of two black men shot to death as they jogged with two white teen-age girls in a Salt Lake City park four years ago. The men in Texas recognized Joseph Paul Franklin, And there is the one ratio that seems always to be widening: the number of police officers compared with the suspect being led from the Utah courtroom, as the man who bought a caliber semi-automatic rifle from them in the summer of 1977. That same rifle was the rise in the crime rate.

This situation is one that policemen like Herb Riley and his boss, Capt. Leroy J. Adkins, point to in explaining found near the scene after Gerald C. Gordon was shot to death on the parking lot of Brith Sholom Kneseth Isreal the increase in unsolved murders. Most of these cases Synagogue in Richmond Heights the following October.

Lankford and FBI agents were led to Franklin by the are not ongoing investigations, said Adkins, who has been commander of the city department's homicide link to the hunting rifle and by a composite drawing based on witnesses' descriptions of a man that three division since November 1982. "You reach a point when you've done practically everything you can do," he said. "So unless something people saw walking with a guitar case in the direction of a grassy knoll near the synagogue on the afternoon that Gordon, a 42-year-old Chesterfield man, was shot. II ill mil ii ii iiiiiiii imii i inn Jip i new comes in, the cases sit there. The real reason, I suppose, is the volume of work.

You can't devote the Police had intially discounted anti-Semitism as a manpower. motive, but it was hatred of blacks and Jews that "That's why the headless girl is so frustrating consumed Franklin, Lankford said, and brought him to the St. Louis area on the day Gordon was shot. He was there still work to be done. here to attend an American Nazi Party demonstration in Florissant who at times have been assisted by teams of other officers, recently retraced all the steps taken when the investigation began in the winter of '82.

Persons who were interviewed about the case were questioned again. The St. Louis Board of Education gave police a computer list of black girls of that age group who were in school in 1982, but could not be accounted for in 1983. There were hundreds of children in that category. Police then called all over the country locating unaccounted for schoolgirls.

They are currently checking these lists for a second time. Using another list of Aid to Dependent Children recipients, detectives traced the whereabouts of all 716 girls, ages 7 to 12 years old, who were on the welfare rolls and who lived in the area where the headless girl's body was found. Fifteen thousand flyers, giving a description and requesting information about "little Jane Doe," were placed on doors in the north St. Louis neighborhood. Two thousand letters were sent to school superintendents in Missouri and Illinois in an attempt to gather information on all missing children.

Letters were also mailed to state police and highway patrol commanders across the country. So far, the sum total of information from this effort zero. Immigration authorities aided in the investigation. Maybe the child was a Cuban or Haitian immigrant, police theorized. Nothing came of this, either.

Police never found the head, not ever after a search of every section of the sewer system from Hamilton Avenue to Union Boulevard, from Delmar to St. Louis Avenue, from Hodiamont to Union and Delmar to Natural Bridge. Roof tops and trash cans in this area were also checked. A reward of $10,000 has been offered. Letters seeking information about the girl were sent to every black newspaper and radio station in the country by Adkins.

In December of last year, four mud-splattered grave diggers served as pallbearers as the headless girl was finally buried, nine months after her body was found. It was a gray, overcast day, given color by the spray of pink, white and yellow flowers placed on the casket. The minister called the crime dastardly, and prayed for a solution. After the funeral. Herb Riley said: "We're no closer today than the day I picked her up in that building." Not even the cause of death was determined, although Dr.

Mary Case, deputy chief medical examiner, suspects that the girl might have died from suffocation or strangulation. "I feel strongly that the kid is from here," said Riley. "Doesn't anyone care about this child but this homicide unit?" Franklin, a 34-year-old drifter, is in the federal penitentiary at Marion, III. serving four consecutive life sentences. He is suspected in seven or more homicides throughout the United States, most of them racially motivated, and in a synagogue bombing in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Richmond Heights police have applied for a murder warrant, but for Lankford the case is solved. Whether the St. Louis County prosecutor's office issues a warrant is rather academic. ul Kf Detective Sgt. Herb Riley holds the sweater removed from the body of a headless girl.

Capt. Leroy Adkins is at right. The Headless Girl Gary Consolino Ellen Jane Dooling or both of the victims. But other detectives believe it may have been a case of mistaken identity, or merely a random and senseless act. Before going to St.

Louis Hills, the couple stopped at Consolino's house in the 5700 block of Columbia Avenue, near its intersection with Hampton. Shortly before 1 a.m., they left his house. "Assuming he drove her straight home, they should have arrived where we found them at 1:10 or 1:15 a.m.," said Riley, who has timed the drive on numerous occasions. Hundreds of people have been interviewed, including longtime friends of both young people. Police tried to determine if there was any possibility of a jealous boyfriend or girlfriend.

"We checked all the way back to her first date," Riley said. "All the way back to grade school." A reward of $36,000 has been offered. Hypnosis was tried on one person who saw a rusty red Mustang speeding from the neighborhood that early morning; the witness was unable to recall the license plate number. There were four white men in the car, one of them with long blond hair. "A lot of blind alleys," said Riley.

Two years ago, Riley had a phone call that caused his heart to pound. "This guy says, 'Would he be in trouble if he was with someone who shot the wrong I said that nothing would happen to the guy who riding with "The feds are never going to let him go," he said, a 6 For nearly seven years, it appeared that Gordon's murder might never be solved, that it would find a place on the long list of unsolved murders in the SL Louis area. Often, the only tangible reminders of these crimes are bulky folders in homicide detectives' file cabinets. Stuffed inside the folders are police reports, investigators' notes, telephone numbers and photographs of bodies, collapsed or contorted in the surprised shapes of murder victims the final pose, the continuing mystery. Detective Sgt.

Herbert Riley has worked for 18 years in the St. Louis Police Department's homicide division, and he knows that there are some mysteries that turn out to be bottomless pits. "A lot of time it starts with confusion and then goes to utter chaos," Riley said. "Some people think you can solve every murder that happens, but they're getting tougher and tougher to solve." Most homicide detectives are reluctant to talk about the pressures that build when high-profile, unsolved slayings began to pile up. But the pressures are there: Who killed "Little Jane Doe," the headless and unidentified girl? Who murdered Ellen Jane Dooling and Gary Joseph Consolino? Who fired the fatal shot at Charles Timmerman? Who bludgeoned Colette Gill and her 4-year-old daughter, Tiffany? Who shot and murdered Daniel W.

King, the judge's son-in-law? Who The Super-Good Kids The case of the headless girl, known also as "Little Jane Doe," is one those homicides that "eats" at detectives; it is a mystery wrapped in mysteries. In February 1982, the decapitated remains of a black girl, believed to be from 9 to 10 years old, was found in the basement of vacant apartment building at 5635 Clemens Avenue. The age was determined by a pathologist's examination of the bones. The girl was tall for her age, even with the head missing. She measured 4 feet, 10 inches.

The remains weighed 70 pounds. It is believed that she was either in the third or fourth grade. In an intriguing aspect of the autopsy, pathologists removed a mold growth from the body of the girl. Using this as a guide, they grew a similar fungus in a Petri dish at the Missouri Botanical Garden to determine how long the girl had been dead. Their estimate from three to five days.

A soiled yellow V-neck sweater and a red and white nylon rope, used to tie the girl's hands behind her back, someone who shot somebody; I was trying to get him to "We're still getting calls, and some of them have made a lot of sense," said Riley. His last tip came in February. "Another wild goose chase," he said. This is the case that consumes him: the shooting deaths of two "innocent kids, two super-good kids from nice families." The murders of Ellen Jane Dooling, an 18-year-old freshman at St Louis University, and Gary Joseph Consolino, 20, a junior at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, have mystified homicide investigators for nearly four years.

talk." "Well, bleep the shooter," said the caller, who slammed the phone down and was never heard from again. TOMORROW: A mother and child murdered in their home; an executive killed in a car blast. put the bomb under the drivers seat of the Cadillac that exploded and killed Phillip J. Lucier? Who stabbed and i Hollywood Doing Another Take On Stunt Safety -mm Red Buttons and Ernest Borgnine were hurt working on the same movie. "I slit my leg open from my ankle to my knee on the last day of shooting," Buttons said.

"I had to escape through a jagged hole in the boat. I miscalculated as I climbed through, and my leg was ripped. They took me to the hospital, took care of it and I came back and finished the scene. But I was bandaged up for most of that summer." Borgnine tore a ligament in his back while hauling a heavy rope. He was in great pain and bad to be carried off the set But after treatment by a doctor, he was back to work the next day wearing a leather corset.

Walter Matthau was taken to a hospital after falling off a platform while working on a movie. Ricardo Montalban, star of television's "Fantasy Island," still suffers pain and a barely detectable limp because of a See ACCIDENTS, Page 22 any request made of them. Usually they don't want to blow the gig. We don't want to look like we're chicken in front of our peers." Asner said the situation became more dangerous for actors because with more sophisticated audiences, movie makers try harder to make hazardous scenes look real. During a mishap while filming "Endangered Species," actress JoBeth Williams' hair and jacket burst Into flames.

"The cameras are rolling, and you don't think about the dangers. In that moment it's very hard to say no," Williams said. When Burt Reynolds was working on the movie "Stick" (to be released in August) in Florida, a blank was fired and struck him in the eye. He was taken to a hospital for treatment and had to wear a patch for a brief time. While starring in the recent film "Scarface," Al Pacino was burned when the barrel of a gun he'd been firing became very hot.

Pacino' inadvertently grabbed the barrel and By Rena Dictor LeBlanc The entertainment business can be dangerous, and not just for stunt people. Stars like Al Pacino, Burt Reynolds, Paul Newman, Michael Jackson, Kathleen Turner, Walter Matthau, JoBeth Williams, Ann-Margret and Gene Hackman have suffered burns, broken bones and other injuries while working. In some cases stars nearly were killed. Ed Asner, president of the Screen Actors Guild, says it's time actors said "No!" when it comes to risking life and limb on the job. Ever since actor Vic Morrow and two children were killed during the filming of "Twilight Zone" in 1982, however, the Hollywood community reportedly has become more safety-conscious.

"Risk taking in movie making is something of an occupational hazard," said Asner. "Over the years, actors have felf they're so lucky to be actors, they must be capable of responding to burned bis hand. He was taken to a hospital for treatment Possibly the most serious recent accident suffered by a performer occurred when Michael Jackson's hair caught fire during the filming of a Pepsi commercial. It required laser surgery to repair bis burned scalp. He was burned by fireworks set off during filming.

Miko Brando, son of Marlon Brando, was the first person to reach Michael when his hair caught fire. Miko said, "The explosion was louder and brighter than any of the other explosions had been. "Also, the explosion was set off sooner than before. Michael had no time to move away from the explosion. He told me that he was directed in the final take to remain alongside the fireworks till after the explosion, and not to go down the stairs right away like he had done in all the other takes." Kathleen Turner, who co-starred in the adventure movie "Romancing the trying to beat out the flames that were engulfing a man in "The Towering Inferno." Steve McQueen had a close call while filming "The Towering Inferno." He momentarily lost his footing while clinging to a cable being moved by a crane.

He was 60 feet in the air. He hung on desperately until he managed to regain his footing. Shelly Winters reportedly saved Gene Hackman's life during the making of "The Poseidon Adventure." Hackman was swimming in about 12 feet of water on sets that were supposed to look like a ship turned upside down in the ocean. While he was underwater, a big simulated wall toppled and pinned him. Co-star Winters was swimming by just after it happened.

Utilizing the buoyancy of the water, she was able to lift the massive 35-by-50-foot tin sheet and push it aside to set him free. The movie's producer, Irwin Allen, said, "There's no doubt in my mind that she saved his life." Stone," had a close call while working on location outside a town called Jalapa in Veracruz. "We ran into a mud slide that wasn't planned," she said. "And down we went It wasn't till I got back to the hotel that I realized I almost died!" Michael Douglas, who co-starred and co-produced the film, explained, "She slipped as she was getting away from the mud slide and scraped her shin on a rock. There was a big noise, and the earth was shaking.

The slide blocked the road, and that was the end of shooting. "None of the locals knew there were slides there. But they just had a major rainstorm. We were making our picture soon after the 'Twilight Zone' tragedy and we were extremely conscious of the responsibilities in the area of safety." A number of dangerous scenes have resulted in accidents and near accidents during the filming of disaster movies through the years. Paul Newman burned his hands while.