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AMAZING STORIES!

The District WeeklyWed. October 31
 

NIGHT OF THE HUNTER
Legend: Bill Hunter, ace reporter for the Press-Telegram, was killed by the “Curse of John F. Kennedy”—the strange collection of deaths that involved people connected to the president’s Nov. 22, 1963 assassination in Dallas—five months after he wrote an award-winning series on the mysterious tragedy.

Reality: Hunter, 35, died an equally strange death that’s never been conclusively linked to the JFK assassination.

At five minutes past midnight on Thurs., April 22, 1964, Bill Hunter was killed by a bullet to the heart while reading a mystery novel called Stop This Man! in the press room of the Long Beach Police Department. The fatal shot was fired by Long Beach police officer Creighton Wiggins Jr. from his department-issue, snub-nosed .38.

Wiggins was second-generation LBPD—his dad was an inspector—and by all accounts a conscientious officer. He and his partner, Errol Greenleaf, were said to be friends with Hunter. But according to the Press-Telegram’s 1977 story looking back on the tragedy—written by the awesomely named Larry (his friends called him “Lash”) LaRue, “Horseplay with guns . . . was frequent and common among officers in 1964.”

Officially, that’s what cost Hunter his life.

Wiggins was on his way to play a few hands of pinochle with the reporter when he stopped for a drink of water and accidentally dunked his tie in the fountain. His partner, Greenleaf, mocked him for it as the two men rode the elevator to the second-floor press room—and Wiggins jokingly drew his gun on him.

Greenleaf made it to the press room first and, continuing the joke, immediately drew his gun, too, pointing the pistol around the door jamb into the hallway, toward Wiggins.

Wiggins still had his gun out when he entered the press room—according to LaRue, “sneaking into the room to get the drop on his partner again.” But then, somehow, some way, LaRue wrote, “he squeezed the trigger, and the room roared.”

Hunter, a resident of Lakewood with three children, lay in state at Dilday Mortuary. Long Beach City Manager John Mansell, who is still remembered for his choice of headgear—a derby hat—led a city delegation among 250 people who paid their respect. As Goliath and the Vampires screened at the old West Coast theater on Ocean Boulevard—a sign of decay in the heart of a city Hunter had worked hard to clean up—the veteran reporter was laid to rest that weekend in his home town of Dallas.

Initially, Wiggins claimed the gun went off when he dropped it. Greenleaf backed up the story for about 13 hours, then came clean. The officers took lie detector tests, were fired, and eventually received probation. Contacted by Larry LaRue in June 1977, Wiggins declined to discuss that night in 1964. But Greenleaf talked—talked about why he didn’t appeal a case his lawyer thought they could have won. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t appeal because I wasn’t sure I could take any more,” Greenleaf told LaRue. “People thought I didn’t care. Bill Hunter was my friend.”

Greenleaf’s lawyer, E. Fred Lightner, told LaRue a slightly different story. They could have won the case, Lightner claimed, but their defense would have put Greenleaf’s fellow officers on the spot—forcing them to testify extensively about horseplay with loaded guns—and Greenleaf wouldn’t have it.

“One of the officers, a captain,” LaRue wrote, “would have had to admit to firing his service revolver into the ceiling of his office three times while toying with it, Lightner said.”

As for the JFK Curse? Hunter was among many people connected with the assassination and its aftermath—including other journalists like Jim Koethe of the Dallas Times Herald and Dorothy Kilgallen of the New York Journal-American—who soon met strange deaths.

The Press-Telegram dispatched Hunter to Dallas immediately after Kennedy was shot; he was reportedly on the last plane out of Los Angeles on Nov. 22, 1963. Two nights later, after presumed assassin Lee Harvey Oswald had been shot and killed on national TV by reputed underworld fringeman Jack Ruby, Hunter and Koethe and attorney Tom Howard wangled a visit to Ruby’s apartment. Ruby, of course, was already under arrest.

No one knows what the three men learned in Ruby’s apartment that night, but there’s this: Koethe was killed in September 1964—six months after Hunter’s weird death—by somebody who broke into his apartment and karate-chopped him in the neck as he got out of the shower.

Howard died in 1965 of a heart attack at age 48. And that’s about it. // THEO DOUGLAS

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    I have been working on a book about the women who worked in the aircraft industry during WWII and found out that Douglas hired "midgets" (the phrase used on the cutlines of the photos I saw) because they could fit into tight spaces like the inside of the fuel tanks.
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    Ms. Schipske,
    That's amazing!
    Thanks for letting us know.
    I wonder where these "midgets" lived while they worked at Douglas; it'd make our story better if they lived here. They may have been commuters, though.
    My grandmother worked at Douglas during the war, and I know she drove in from the San Gabriel Valley every day--down Rosemead Boulevard.
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    "Bloody Sunday": 1977 Signal Hill Speed Run. I was one of the few women who entered that race. There were two of us to be exact. The year before, there were no women represented. I thought that was terrible so I entered. I had a great leather outfit made by Bates Leather and was sponsored by my Dad's ship repair company. The other woman, Leslie Jo Ritzma, made it down and got the record for first woman to make the speed run. I unfortunately, as others that day, crashed...(my boyfriend at the time, Herb Spitzer, also crashed...let's just say, it was an exciting day for spectators!) I was not hurt but gave my mother a fright by doing a roll to the side just after the crest of the hill right in front of her! That was a very memorable day for me. I used to skate (roller skates) all the local skateparks and a few empty pools and am still in touch with several of "the guys" I hung with back then. (I'm a triathlete now.) Thanks for bringing some light to a great race, with or without the crashes!...You also got me back in contact with Jim O'Mahoney, a really great guy, that an interview with him alone would make for an interesting article!
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    I am Herbs brother and saw Michelle crash that day. I believe her trucks were tight and didn't turn because she hit a bump at the top and then the cart didn't go stright down hill and she couldn't make it adjust. A really bad eat. But she was one tough cookie! Herb on the other had got to aot 53 mph and his trucks were to loose and he got speed wabbles and got pitched...Someone in this world might have tape of this day...Wonder why they don't hold the ZShell Hill speed run anymo.
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    alright egor was a butler who worked in the house and there were these kids that live and played in the alley behind where he worked and he hated the kids because they were loud and made messes so one night he snaped and hung all the kids
    there's a ledge where u can see a semented door way and thats were it supposidly happend

    drive down the alley at night with your lights out crazy scary
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    I live in the Igor house. The stories crack me up!!!
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    I live in the Igor house. The stories crack me up!!! Email me with any questions.
 
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