WILLIAM HEIRENS: THE LIPSTICK KILLER OR PATSY?

Article BY Sandra Dean

---

William Heirens: also known as "The Lipstick Killer"; confessed to the murders of two women and a child between June 1945 and January 1946. Though William Heirens was convicted of three murders and he served 65 years of his life in prison, there have been many people who believe he may be innocent. There is no doubt that he was criminal in the sense of burglarizing homes and in the end stealing some very valuable bonds; however, there are those who believe he was forced into a confession. A confession he has admitted that he had to have a newspaper article and assistance from others to accurately write. Was he a stone-cold killer or was he a young man who got wrapped up in something way over his head? You decide.

 

WILLIAMS EARLY YEARS OF LIFE AND CRIME

William Heirens was born on November 15, 1928 in Evanston, IL to Margarete and George Heirens. Three years later William became a big brother to Jere Heirens and as he grew, joined William in a lot of mischief. From an early age, William had a great love for drawing, science, fixing things like clocks and a basic need to understand how things worked. As the Great Depression made earning harder and harder Margarete was forced to find a job, leaving her two boys at home with sitters which led to some very interesting and at times frightening evenings. While Margarete and George where at work, William with the assistance of Jere would attempt different types of science experiments, one time caused minor fire damage to the family’s home. On another occasion, Margarete came home to William on the roof the house with card board shaped like wings on his arm, the lucky timing kept William from attempting to join the Wright Brothers in flight; which saved him from major injuries.

William and Jere Heirens

As time went on, William’s parents began having arguments over money and George’s drinking. It was during these times William would leave the house to get away from all the anger and noise, since the noise didn’t bother Jere, he wouldn’t leave the house with William. At first William would only take longs walk to avoid the arguments, since staying away ensured he didn’t have to acknowledge all the problems his parents were having. On one of his walks, William watched a couple making love and afterward told his mother about it; his mother told him what he saw was disgusting and for him to never have any type of relationship with a girl. To assist with the family income, William took a delivery boy job at a local grocery while in the seventh grade. It was during one of his deliveries that William miscounted the amount one customer gave him by a dollar; which started him on his criminal ventures. Knowing his employer was a struggling grocer, William was afraid of losing his job and was actively looking for a way to make up the dollar he was missing. It was during another delivery the same day that he noticed money laying on the table of a customer and took only one dollar to ensure he would have the correct amount at the end of his deliveries. This was the first-time William had ever stolen anything and enjoyed the instant satisfaction that accompanied the action.

William continued to take long walks to get away from his parents arguing, it was during this period that he began burglarizing homes, apartments and hotels. William developed a seasonal burglary schedule depending on the time frame of darkness for each season. Plus, William would take into consideration of areas that would most likely be vacant; such as, lakefront houses during the winter. During the summer month’s William took advantage of people leaving windows and doors open; due the fact that air-conditioning had not been employed in these areas, to check out the inside of hotel rooms and apartments prior to entering them. After entering a home, apartment or hotel room, it wasn’t unusual for William to double lock or chain a door for an early warning of someone attempting to enter. William’s intent was to ensure no one was in the location he was going to burglarizes; he had enough anger and confrontation at home. He would do anything he could to ensure he didn’t have it while doing something he enjoyed; such as the thrill he got from breaking into and burglarizing homes. In most cases during his early years, it was unusual for him to take money; however, this doesn’t mean he left these different locations without a trophy or two. Mostly William took things such as women’s furs, men clothing, cutlery and guns. William enjoyed taking guns apart to see how they functions, a love he learned while his father was an armed security guard. So, it wasn’t unusual for him to make off with one he found while searching a location.

It is difficult to say whether William did his criminal activities for the thrill or some other type of gain as he grew older. William enjoyed the danger of scaling walls, crossing open areas that were 30 feet off the ground, among other risky moves to enter and exit the different locations; even would often skip fire escapes for a harder entry. During one of his long walks in a park, William drew the attention of a police officer, who frisked and found a gun on him; which, latter was identified as being stolen. After that William was detained for having the stolen gun and he stayed in custody until his trial three weeks later. It was during this time that William admitted to eleven burglaries and told the police where he had hidden the loot from his criminal activities. At age 13, William found himself sentenced to a year in the Catholic-run Gibault School for Wayward Boys in Indiana. Upon release William was quickly back to his old ways of burglarizing peoples’ homes. It had become an obsession he had developed while learning ways to deal with discord at home and then became hooked on the rush he received from the risk of getting in and out of the different locations. It didn’t take long for William to get into further trouble as he was caught while prowling the Rogers Park Hotel. The fact that the police found keys to another hotel from down the block didn’t help his cause.

Though William was beaten by the police during his interrogation, he felt the police had done no wrong and even stated so to his mother. He even accepted the judge’s verdict and punishment without a complaint. The judge decided to send William to St. Bede Academy, a detention center run by Benedictine Monks. It was while he attended the academy that William found himself excelling in both his academics and sports. He did so well by the age of 16, that with the encouragement of the monks from the academy, he applied to the University of Chicago under a special learning program for young people. It wasn’t long after leaving the academy that he was informed that he had been accepted, this brought delight to him, feeling he had finally gotten a chance to make something of his life. His parents even rented an old house on the outskirts of Lincoln, to provide him with a home nearby. They were hoping a country life would allow a young man to have space to roam and not get into trouble.

There was hope that living in the country would also bring around peace between his parents; however, their arguing continued and William’s roaming continued to lead him to again burglarize the surrounding homes. It should be noted though, William admitted while he was away from home at boarding school he didn’t even once consider committing crimes of any nature. It was when he had to spend any large amount of time with his parents and their continued arguing that he would find himself wandering and breaking into houses again. To this point for the most part he only grabbed items to keep as trophies. It wasn’t until he started at the University of Chicago and money became an issue that he changed his habits.

Williams first year of school, he was very successful in keeping high grades as he studied to be an Electrical Engineer. Since his parents were unable to assist him in paying for his tuition and housing, William began working at the Orchestra Hall as an usher a few nights a week and for the university as a docent (also known as a teacher’s assistant). At this point in his life he would normally only steal when money was tight and he had no legal way of covering his cost of living and school. It was also at this point when he started working with other struggling university students in stealing saving and war bonds.
William had become extremely talented with surgical tools when it came to altering the names on the bonds and substituting friends’ and his name as the owners of the bonds. Though he did buy two $500 savings bonds with money he saved up, the rest of the bonds were stolen and valued at $7000.

During his second year at the university, William’s grades began to fall; mostly because he had discovered girls. Plus, when he wasn’t on a date, he was talking and playing games with his roommates. He wasted so much time, that he rarely, if ever took time to study and keep up with his class work. This is not something that unusual as he was only 17 years old and starting to really discover himself. Plus, without an authority figure to stay on his back when it came to school, he did what many 17-year-old boys would do; he slacked off. As tuition time came around again, William decided he needed to cash out a couple of the bonds, so that he could pay his bill and so he was able to take his girlfriend out the next night on a date. He decided to take the train to the opposite side of town to cash the bonds at a post office he had used before; it was during times like this that he would often carry a pistol on himself to help protect his money. William claimed the pistol was only there to frighten off would be thieves and didn’t think it even worked. The problem arose when he arrived and found out the Post Office had closed at noon. Reading a note posted in the window William discovered during the summer months the Post Office was scheduled to close every day at noon, something he hadn’t had to deal with up until this point.

After finding the post office closed and himself with no money to take his date out on, William decided he would fall back on his old habit of burglarizing homes to get some extra cash for his date. William went to an apartment building that he had burglarized before, he only did this because he knew the building extremely well. He utilized his usual tactic of walking through the halls of the building looking for a door that was opened and no one inside. Once he found one, he looked inside to ensure no one was home; it was at this point he spotted a wallet on a table with money in it. However, his many years of luck of getting in and out had ran out. A neighbor in one of the adjacent apartments had spotted him and yelled out. William ran from the building and down the street, making many turns in hopes that he could lose any angry pursuers. Thinking his luck had changed, William picked a high spot behind another building to climb up a fence to get a look around the area. Again, his luck didn’t hold, as another neighbor spotted a suspicious teenager and called the police. It didn’t take long for officers to arrive and trapped him up on a platform. To escape, William pulled his pistol and pointed it at one of the officers pulling the trigger once firing a single shot. He was lucky and miss the office, as he was only hoping that doing it would open a space large enough for him to pass through. It didn’t work, as a third off duty police officer arrived and began dropping flower pots onto his head; knocking him unconscious and ending his last day of freedom on June 26th, 1946.

 

LIPSTICK KILLER’S CRIMES: TWO WOMEN AND A CHILD

• Josephine Ross, a 43-year-old female was killed on June 5th,1945; in her North Kenmore Avenue Apartment. When her body was found; her attacker had stabbed her four times in the throat, then wrapped adhesive tape around her throat and a skirt around her head. The apartment had been plundered, with blood spatter on the walls; one aspect that should be mentioned is there was nothing apparently missing and the whole place had been wiped clean of fingerprints; as reported by police. The police believed Josephine had come home an interrupted an intruder. It was obvious she had struggled with the intruder since she was clutching dark hairs in her hand that did not belong to her. It was believed the hair belonged to the intruder, the only other information they could attain was from a pseudo witness who stated that they had seen a suspicious dark complexion male running from the area. Her fiancé, ex-husbands and ex-boyfriends were questioned and cleared; leaving the police with no directions to continue their investigation.

• Frances Brown, a 32-year-old female was killed on December 10th, 1945; in her North Pine Grove Apartment. Frances was found by a cleaning lady after she was attempting to figure out why a radio was playing extremely load, the lady found Frances’s door slightly open and could barely make out a body on the floor. When police arrived, they found Frances had been shot in the head and a butter knife stabbed all the way through her neck exposing both ends of the knife. Once Frances was deceased the intruder had stripped her naked and rinsed all the blood from her body, then wrapped a few towels around her head. A single smudged bloody finger print was found in the doorjamb of the exterior doorframe. Nothing appeared to be missing from Frances’s apartment; however, there was a message written on the wall with the victim’s lipstick, it stated “For heavens Sake catch me Before I kill more I cannot control myself”. Though this message has been debated as a hoax, due to a reporter being on scene prior to the police. It was also the same reporter who sold photographs of the message on the wall, wrote the front-page article and nicknamed the killer, “The Lipstick Killer”. A doorman for the building had stated at around 4A.M. he heard what sounded like gunshots and shortly afterwards a nervous looking man got off the elevator and fumbled with the front door before leaving the building; the doorman stated the man looked to be approximately 35 to 40-years old and roughly 140 pounds. Even with this information from the doorman, the Chicago Police released information to the press that stated they believed the killer to be a woman.

Picture of message written on Frances’s apartment wall.
• Suzanne Degnan, a 6-year-old female was reported missing from her second story bedroom on the night of January 7th, 1946 by her parents. When police arrived at the home of the Degnans’ they found a ladder leaning against the wall below Suzanne’s bedroom window, plus a crumpled-up ransom note was located near the window inside the bedroom. The note stated, “GeI $20,000 Reddy & wAITe foR Word. do Not Notify FBI oR Police. Bills IN 5’s & 10’s.”, on the back of the note it stated, “BuRN This FoR heR SAfTY”.

Picture of Suzanne Degnan’s ransom note.
In the days that followed the family received multiple phone calls asking them for the ransom. Due to the lack of technology in the 1940s, there was no way they could trace the calls to potential suspects. It should be noted that during this same period that meatpackers across the nation were on strike due to changes in the law that they did not agree with. The federal agency enforcing these laws was the Office of Price Administration (OPA), of which Mr. Degnan was an executive. It is important to note that Mr. Degnan and his family had been threatened on multiple occasions prior to the kidnapping and that he had been under surveillance by police for his own safety. It was because of all of this, that the Chicago Police believed the kidnapper was a meatpacker.

Within a short period of time the Mayor of Chicago received a message from the suspected kidnappers, it states, “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?” It wasn’t long after receiving the note that an anonymous caller contacted the police with the suggestion of looking in the sewers around the home of Degnan. It didn’t take long for the police to begin finding severed body parts of Suzanne around the neighborhood. Her kidnappers had decapitated her, removed her arms and legs from her torso. In all, the body parts were spread within a mile radius of her home. Though it took roughly a month to locate all her body parts, the police were eventually able to. In most cases the body parts had been placed into the city’s sewer system, meaning the individual dumping the parts had to remove a manhole cover to do so. This should have caused a lot of noise; however, no one came forward with any information pertaining to unusual activity in the area.

During the search following the finding of the head, the police located a basement laundry room, it was at this point it was discovered the tubs in this room had been utilized for the dismemberment of Suzanne’s body. It was determined that she had been killed in another location, but brought to the laundry room to for the dismemberment. However, the press took the liberty of calling it the murder room; a liberty they would further take dealing with not only Suzanne’s case, but also Frances’s and Josephine’s cases. The coroner, Dr. Kearns believed Suzanne’s killer was either in a profession that require a great knowledge of the human anatomy or a background in dissection. The coroner believed an average doctor would not have the skills necessary to make such precision cuts; such as, a meat cutter would. Another coroner had stated “it was a very clean job with absolutely no signs of hacking.”

 

THE CONTINUING INVESTIGATION

Unlike the first two murders; Suzanne’s case had drawn attention of not just the local community, but pretty much the whole nation. It was because of this high level of coverage that the Chicago Police Department and the Illinois Attorney General had an enormous pressure to find the guilty party. The police located only one man who stated he saw a man with a shopping bag walking toward the Degnan’s house on the night of the kidnapping; he related to the police that the man was approximately 5’9” and looked to be in his mid-thirties. During the search of the laundry room, a few items were recovered; however, no one knew for sure if these items had anything to do with the crime or where just rubbish left in the basement. On multiple occasions people were brought in for questions, which in most cases lasted days. The problem that the police ran into was the over publicizing of the potential suspects by Attorney William Touhy; however, everyone who was questioned and in many cases, were give a polygraph test; were later released.

One notable individual who was brought in was Hector Verburgh a 65-year-old male who worked as a janitor in the same building the Degnan lived. Like so many others, Hector was accused publicly of kidnapping and murdering Suzanne. By this point the Federal Bureau of Investigation had been called in to develop a profile of the suspect(s); in which, Hector didn’t fit at all. There only thing that really could connect Hector to the crime was the fact he utilized the basement laundry room during his duties as a janitor. Like many others, Hector claimed he had basically been beaten, tortured and had food withheld for at least two days to get a confession from him. The police at one point also attempted to get Hector’s own wife to provide a statement against him. Hector’s saving grace was his Union lawyer filed a writ of habeas corpus (false imprisonment) against the Chicago Police Department. Hector stated after being released, “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.” Hector was hospitalized for 10 days for treatment of a separated shoulder among other injuries. Hector and his wife sued the Chicago Police Department and received $20,000; $5,000 alone was for his wife, since the police attempted to get her provide a false statement against her husband.

The police did solve who had made the ransom calls to the family the following morning. A couple of teenage boys, Theodore Campbell and Vincent Costelloto had overheard the police taking about the ransom demand and came up with a way to cash in. The boys had further put together a story about the kidnapping from what they had read in the newspaper and by listening to the police talking in the hallways. After taking a polygraph test, it was determined the boys had nothing to do with crime other than making the phone calls.

On more than one occasion potential suspects would leave a few days after being detained, stating the police had threaten, beaten or hung them upside down to get a confession. In one case a male nurse, Richard Russel Thomas who had recently moved to Arizona from Chicago and was in jail for molesting his daughter was accused and confessed. It was found his hand writing was somewhat like the letters in the ransom note. Richard even confessed to the murder in hopes of escaping his charges in Arizona; which in the end didn’t happen.

 

THE END OF THE ROAD FOR WILLIAM

William awoke to the sounds and sights of being in a hospital; however, it seemed as if things were more crazy than normal in a hospital as he heard people talking about little Suzanne’s death and the mentioning of his name. One thing he was confused on if it happened or not, was when he was coming out of a haze that someone unseen by him was taking his fingerprints on a piece of paper. It was about this point that William figured out that the police were attempting to pin the girl’s death on him. During his time in the hospital, William had stated, in order to get a confession a male nurse poured ether over his genitals and a police officer on multiple occasions had punched him in the stomach with his elbow. William was interrogated for six days straight without being allowed a lawyer and up to the fourth day his parents had not been allowed to see him. During this period, William reported he continued to be physically beaten, verbally threatened, was provided limited amount of food and water, and even given sodium pentathlon (truth serum). While under the control of the sodium pentathlon William never faltered when it came to denying having anything to do with the crimes. Though William’s parents wanted very much to help their son, the police kept them away from him. On July 2nd, 1946, a polygraph test was administered to William in which the tester stated that he showed no deception when it came to the crimes dealing with the kidnapping and murder of Suzanne, or the murders of Frances and Josephine. Throughout this ordeal, William never once gave in or admitted he had anything to do with the murders.
William in police custidy following interigation
It was also during this period that handwriting examples and his finger prints were being compared to evidence on hand for all three crimes. Though the experts stated the handwriting did not come close to any of the evidence collected and though the bloody finger print was smudged, the Chief of detectives claimed that it was a match to William’s. Further claims were made that William’s small finger print was found on the ransom note; however, it was pointed out that technically since they were only able to get a nine-point comparison the print did not meet the minimum requirement of 12 points set by the FBI. Though the police and the attorney general kept pressing him to at least admit to one of the crimes; however, William still stayed to true to himself and would not admit to the crimes.

William didn’t budge on his innocence until he was sitting in his cell listening to the guards’ radio and heard that he had confessed to the crimes. It was shortly after that he found out the local newspapers were running front page articles with a confession that he had supposedly given. The only problem was he hadn’t and though every legal authority in the city denied that William had confessed to anything, the media still ran with a made-up story of William’s confession. The biggest problem is that the fake confession went national, which caused the original reporter from the Chicago Tribune to double down on not retracting the story or admitting to any wrong doing. At this point defense attorneys were hired by William’s parents and allowed in to see him. Regardless of what William or his parents stated, his attorneys believed he was guilty and had decided the only thing they could do for him was to have the death penalty taken off the table. With everyone in the country believing the confession was true as stated in the newspapers, William and his attorneys did not believe he could get a fair trial. It was at this point William agreed to give a confession, to save his own life.

With the assistance of his attorneys, the newspaper, information received from the police, district attorneys and a bit his own imagination; William wrote a confession claiming he had been involved in the kidnapping and murders. It wasn’t until William was in front of the judge that he retracted his confession, forever losing the chance of only serving one life sentences. This was mainly due to the embarrassment of the prosecution of having their prime suspect again claim he had nothing to do with the crimes committed against the three victims. The prosecution then placed even more pressure on William, making him believe that their evidence was so overwhelming that he had no chance of winning. Both William and his attorneys believed this to be true and knew if he lost at trial that he would be given the death penalty, William again decided taking a deal was a much better offer. However, William also had to face the fact that the orginal offer was no longer a consideration. The new deal he was given was three life sentences to run consectivly, placing him in prison for the rest of his life. Though the family of at least one of the victims did not believe William had anything to do with the death of their loved one, he still went to prison. With his arrest and confession, this parent’s and brother changed their last name to ensure no one would associate his convictions would not cause them any problems in the future.

While in prison, William studied law and became a model prisoner. He assisted other inmates with their written appeals and also aided in their education. William also took courses dealing with electronics that eventually lead him to running his own prison repair shop. On March 5th, 2012 at the age of 83 William died while still in prison, the longest consectative prison sentence in history. Though he confessed his innocenses to the day that he died, William was never given the chance to prove otherwise. His only wish was to have the chance to breath one day of free air, but he was never given the chance.