Daily News from New York, New York • 3

DAILY NEWS, FRIDAY JULY 16, 1965 3 Gtu3Eml fee IM sswog By THOMAS PUGH and HENRY LEE Attractive, redhaired Mrs. Alice Crimmins was requestioned late yesterday in the suffocation death of her tiny, blue-eyed daughter and the disappearance of her young son, but after an hour returned to her home. Police installed a special phone number, AX 7-3641, in the hunt for the missing boy. They promised that the identity of any callers would be protected. Accompanied by her law-f yer, Michael LoPenna, a policewoman and a detective, the 26-year-old mother showed up at 4:25 P.M.

at the Fresh Meadows station in Queens. Mrs. Crimmins "was taken to the squad room, and there met her estranged husband, Edmund, 29. At 5:30 P.M. she emerged.

LoPenna refused any comment except to say they were returning to her apartment. Earlier, Detective Lt. Joseph P. O'Brien, in charge of the Queens homicide squad, had explained that she was being re-questioned because of "things in her story we don't like" and that the interrogation was taking place in the stationhouse because "this is our environment." Mrs. Crimmins had spent most of the day in her first-floor garden apartment at 150-22 72d Drive, Kew Gardens Hills, from where the children, 4-year-old Alice and 5-year-old Edmund had mysterously disappeared sometime early Wednesday.

Early Wednesday afternoon, Alice's body, a pajama bottom wrapped around her neck and mouth, presumably as a gag, was found about half a mile away in underbrush opposite 71-31 162d Flushing. Despite an intensive two-day search by ground and helicopter, no trace has been found of her 3-foot, 50-pound blond brother. Lawyer Arrives About 4 P.M. yesterday, the lawyer who has been representing Mrs. Crimmins in a custody battle with her husband, arrived at the apartment.

Less than a quarter of an hour later, wearing tight blue toreador pants, white checkered blouse, blue kerchief and sunglasses, Mrs. Crimmins was whisked to the station. An autopy performed yesterday by assistant Queens medical examiner William Benenson only deepened the mystery of Alice's death. There were no marks, no injuries, no signs of molestation on the tiny body, the physician told police, and he gave no indication how she might have been asphyxiated. Apparently, police said, the pajama bottom over her mouth had caused death, but they weren't sure.

As the search for little Edmund if i 'f I imtm tmmm MimiiiM iiwiwiiwaiiMrlilliri (NEWS foto by Tom Gallagher) Mrs. Alice Crimmins is accompanied by. her lawyer, Michael LoPenna, as she leaves police station. The late Alice Crimmins and her brother, Edmund. (Continued on page 10, col.

1) Wounded Sop Kills Mis A Umkerin Straggle for Sum By FRANK MAZZA and NEAL PATTERSON A hoodlum with a long; arrest record was shot to death by a policeman in Brooklyn yesterday in a furious struggle for the cop's gun after the hoodlum, disarmed of a stiletto, had seized the pistol and wounded the cop in the arm. About 150 spectators witnessed the struggle at Nostrand Ave. the circumstances of the shooting, n.iil,i and Fulton in the heart of Bedford-Stuyvesant. Only one man intervened a carpenter's helper who leaped from a truck with a 26-inch policeman's club he carried for protection and came to the cop's assistance, possibly saving his life. The wounded patrolman, Sheldon Leibowitz, 28, of the Grand Ave.

precinct, was taken to St. John's Episcopal Hospital, Brooklyn. The dead man was identified from his fingerprints as Nelson Erby, alias Nelson Brown, 28, with 13 arrests since 1955. The Criminal Record The record included five adding: "We re trying to find out what's true." He exhorted the crowd to Join him in a march on Police Headquarters tomorrow afternoon to demand an independent civilian review board. Brooklyn District Attorney Aaron Koota started an investigation of the shooting, saying one of his assistants sent to the area had reported there were "certain inconsistencies" in accounts of it.

Witnesses Are Sought Koota asked Deputy Chief Inspector Joseph McLaughlin, in charge of Brooklyn North detectives, to bring in at once all witnesses. (NEWS foto by Nick Sorrentlno) Nelson Erby is carried on stretcher to ambulance. We will question them all, if it takes all night," he said. Patrolman Sheldon Leibowitz, wounded in struggle with Erby, lies in St. John's Episcopal Hospital.

His office will start presenting the case before a grand jury on! Monday, Koota said. Erby, described as eroateed. The patrolman said he rose and as he struggled to recover the weapon Erby fired twice, one bullet hitting the cop. A crowd had gathered quickly. about 5 feet 11 and 185 pounds, was sighted by Leibowitz at 11 A.M.

at the place where they fought, according to police. Watching from a panel truck halted at the intersection for a charges of burglary, three of lar- i ceny and two of assault. Five times he had drawn jail terms, ranging from 30 days to 2V to 5 years. His last known address was listed in police records as 747 Lexington Brooklyn. Officials of the Congress of Racial Equality immediately demanded an investigation.

James Farmer, CORE national director, in a telegram to Police Commissioner Vincent Broderick, said that a preliminary inquiry by his organization indicated a "serious possibility of police culpability." Major Owens, chairman of the Brooklyn chapter of CORE, said last night that Erby had a mental problem and should have been treated as a "baby." Group Is Investigating cr in 1 1 Prisoner Hurt in Leap Held in $2,500 bail for hearing Wednesday on burglary and felonious assault charges. Charles Sanders, 22, leaped through an open window in Bronx County Court House yesterday as he was being led to a cell. Sanders, of 243 Mott suffered shock and bruises in the 25-foot fall to E. 161st St. out over the police radio: "Assist patrolman, snots fired." Later, the call was changed to: "Patrolman shot, still shooting." Radio cars arrived quickly.

Soon, more than 50 policemen were at the scene. The crowd had increased to several hundred and, though there was no disorder, 20 more cops were sent. The crowd broke up slowly after removal of the wounded Leibowitz and the Leibowitz said that Erby was disorderly, was screaming, and shadow-boxing. Liebowitz said that he asked the man to quiet down, whereupon Erby drew a four-inch stiletto and threatened him. Cop Draws His Gun The patrolman drew his gun and forced Erby to surrender the knife, he said.

He made Erby turn his back, restored the gun to its holster and prepared to handcuff the suspect's hands behind him. Leibowitz had one manacle, he said, when the prisoner suddenly seized his hand and flipped the officer forward over hi shoulder. Erby then jumped on him, ac red light was Stuart Maxwell, 20, a carpenter's helper. After the shots, Maxwell, a stocky 165-pounder, decided to act. "I was afraid the cop was going to be killed," he said later.

Reaching for the club he carried in the truck, Maxwell jumped into the fray, swinging. Fires Three Shots Leibowitz, regaining his gun, fired three times, striking Erby in the chest and arm and killing him. The crowd was Increasing rapidly, and Leibowitz, with Maxwell's help, drew the body into a store one door from the corner. "Instead of treating him like a child, they treated him like a beast," Owens told several hun dred persons at Jefferson and Nostrand Aves. after a rally he had called to protest the cording to Leibowitz, and snatch Btuart maxweu noias ciud ne I Minutes before, a cell had gon slain man.

Owens said that he did not know ed his revolver from its holster. used to assist,.