In researching other controversial convictions involving innocence claims from famous killers, this blog has elected to do a series of pieces involving a close look at the claims of serial killer, William Heirens, kicking off with a look at his lesser known victims who survived their encounters with a teenage killer.
(Newspaper ad for the Midway Drexel Apartments.)
The crime took place on Friday, October 5, 1945 at the Midway Drexel Apartments, located at 6020 Drexel Avenue, near the University of Chicago, which today according to a quick glance at Google Maps the apartment building no longer exists and is now a rather large parking lot used by the University of Chicago. The victim in the crime was a 27-year-old Army nurse named Evelyn Peterson, who was living at the penthouse apartment with her two sisters after finishing out her tour of service on terminal leave, and took place sometime after 6:30 A.M.
The perpetrator of the crime was William Heirens, a then teenager and notorious serial killer, who following his later guilty plea in a series of murders and crimes, spent the remainder of his life arguing his innocence. And on this particular morning Heirens entered the Midway Drexel apartment building wearing a leather jacket and carrying a briefcase with him. And as he often did with the many burglaries and crimes he committed he rode the elevator to the top floor in order to begin systematically trying apartment doors to see if they were unlocked, where upon arriving at the top floor he noticed a woman, Helen McDonald, the sister of Evelyn Peterson leave her penthouse apartment. He then proceeded to walk around trying doors to see if any rooms were unlocked, moving from floor to floor, before leaving the building and trying to gain entry to yet another apartment building, but failing to gain entrance at that one.
Upon being unable to get into a different building he decided to return to the Midway Drexel, once again taking the Elevator back to the top floor, apparently deciding to see if he could enter the penthouse from the roof, since he saw Helen McDonald leaving and therefore assumed the penthouse would be vacant. While on the roof he located a Skylight window that he could drop down into the penthouse with ease, but before making his entrance, he stopped and defecated near the window, after which he popped open the window and lowered himself inside.
Inside the apartment Evelyn Peterson was just tidying up with her sister gone, not realizing that Heirens had broken in, only seeing a shadow on the floor when Heirens crept into the room behind her. Before she could turn and see who it was, he struck her in the head with a metal rod of some kind, perhaps some sort of pipe or burglary tool that he had brought with him. She immediately blacked out from the fierce blow to her head and fell to the ground.
During the time Peterson was blacked out, he located an electrical cord from a table lamp in the apartment and loosely tied his victim’s arms. He also tore open a suit case, dumping the contents on the floor, locating $150 which he stole in his ransacking, and then quickly left the penthouse and shut the door. Instead of just leaving and fleeing though, he then began banging on the door, shouting, asking if whoever was inside needed help, pretending to be a helpful stranger. Why did he do this? Did he want to invent an excuse for why he had been in her apartment in case there were any witnesses to the crime? Did he sincerely want to help Evelyn Peterson after having attacked her, perhaps not wanting to claim another murder victim? Whatever was his reason, Heirens was now pretending to be a stranger who stumbled upon a crime, trying to steer and control his connection to the crime; that he wasn’t the perpetrator.
Evelyn Peterson awoke in her apartment to the sounds of Heirens banging on her door, calling for her, noticing her hands were tied up. She got up off the floor with her hands still bound and walked to the apartment door and opened it, letting Heirens in. Heirens once again entered the apartment, helping put a blanket around Evelyn Peterson, but not untying her, simply telling her to stay quiet, walking her to a chair in the living room and sitting her down. Evelyn was barely able to talk, but Heirens offered to help her call someone, but was unable to reach her sister Margaret over the phone, who worked at a hospital with her other sister Helen. Heirens then left Evelyn and told her he was going to get her some help.
Upon leaving the apartment, Heirens boarded the elevator again, riding it to the main floor of the building, and located the office of the building Super-Intendent, David Vosberg, to which he stated, “There’s an injured woman upstairs, you should call a doctor.”
“Where,” inquired Vosberg.
“In the Penthouse,” said Heirens.
“I’ll go up immediately,” replied Vosberg, rushing from the room and to the penthouse to check on the tenant. Meanwhile Heirens left the building, heading off to his near-by college.
Once at the apartment, Vosberg found the door to the apartment was unlocked and let himself in. He found Evelyn Peterson sitting in the chair in her living room still tied up. She was in a confused and dazed state, but wasn’t bleeding from her attack. Vosberg untied her and immediately called an ambulance and the police to the building, taking her to the hospital. At the hospital it was determined that her skull was fractured, but that the object that was used to beat her had not broken her skin.
(Chicago Tribune article on the Peterson attack.)
Detectives investigating the attack on Peterson at the time had initially considered the helpful youth who found Evelyn Peterson a suspect, but according to the book, “Murder Man,” by Thomas Downs, had dismissed him during their investigation, never managing to locate the youth at the time and find out his identity as William Heirens. They wrongly concluded that he was just a helpful stranger, just as Heirens had passed himself off as, concluding that maybe he was a door-to-door salesman who had let himself into the building, hence the briefcase and then left, because he perhaps he didn’t want to explain how he had gained entrance to the building in the first place. An investigation by detectives working the crime scene turned up fingerprints from the suspect. They were also able to determine that Peterson’s attacker had entered through the skylight window, noticing that the burglar had defecated near the window.
Following Heirens’ final arrest by police, detectives matched his fingerprints to a print found in Peterson’s apartment, they also pointed out the similar circumstances to other burglaries by Heirens, in which he had defecated at the crime scenes, as well as the crime having occurred near his college, and eye witnesses which included David Vosberg and Peterson herself, who identified him as the helpful youth who found Peterson. However Heirens initially denied the attack, despite the evidence against him, shown here in this excerpt from his police interview:
Q. Now, Bill, on Oct. 5, 1945, at 6020 Drexel Avenue in Chicago, a girl, Evelyn Peterson, who was a Wac lieutenant, was raped and robbed in her apartment in a penthouse at that address, about 5 o’clock in the morning. Did you do that?
A. I didn’t do anything like that.
Q. Do you know who did do that?
A. No.
Q. Do you know where you were on the morning of Oct. 5, 1945?
A. No. Five o’clock, I don’t get up that early.
Q. Your finger and palm prints were found at that place, Bill. Can you explain how they got there?
A. I can’t explain, but they can’t be mine.
Q. The landlady identified you as being there.
A. Well, I was not there.
(Chicago Tribune article on Evelyn Peterson.)
Eventually the eye witnesses identified him as the young man in the leather jacket carrying a briefcase, who had been casing the apartment building, and after confessing to his involvement in the murders of Josephine Ross, Frances Brown, and Suzanne Degnan, Heirens also admitted his involvement in the attack on Evelyn Peterson as well, however after pleading guilty to the murders and numerous other crimes, he slowly began to deny his guilt in all of the crimes, including the Evelyn Peterson case, providing a convoluted story to author Delores Kennedy in the book, “William Heirens: His Day in Court,” arguing that he was simply out robbing apartments on the morning that Peterson was attacked, and while in the process of looking for an apartment to rob, he stumbled upon Evelyn Peterson, who had been attacked and robbed by another burglar, and that it was just all a crazy coincidence that he, a burglar had stumbled on a woman who had been beaten unconscious and robbed by another burglar, while he was in the process of looking to rob an apartment in the same exact building at the same exact time. In his story he also admits that he was there, and that it was his fingerprints in the apartment and that the witnesses did in fact correctly identify him as being present in the apartment building at the time of the attack and even in the apartment.
Located on pages 84-85, of “William Heirens: His day in Court,” by Dolores Kennedy, Heirens’ account of the crime reads as follows:
“Simultaneously, Bill’s fingerprints were compared with the lone “smudged” fingerprint found on the wall in the Drexel Avenue apartment of Evelyn Peterson, an army nurse who had been assaulted on Oct. 5, 1945 and robbed of $150. Despite her protestation that ‘I saw the man for a minute and I wouldn’t be able to identify him,’ Peterson acquiesced, flew back to Chicago from her residence in Fort Dodge, Iowa, and viewed Bill in a police lineup. Her response of ‘I am more inclined than not to say he is the man, but I must think about it because I am confused,’ satisfied police, and they determined that the fingerprint belonged to Bill.
“It was a particularly confusing situation. Police reported that Lieutenant Peterson’s assailant had, apparently, entered her penthouse apartment through a skylight on the roof. The intruder struck her on the head from behind, ransacked her apartment, stealing the money, and fled. Shortly thereafter, a young man appeared at her door, found her in need of help, and, at her request, tried to call her sister at Billings Hospital where she was employed. Unable to connect with the sister, he left the apartment and notified the manager that one of his tenants was injured.
“Bill Heirens admits that he was prowling through the building at 6020 Drexel Avenue on the day in question.
“‘I had just started the university and was still living at home during that period,’ he says. ‘My dad had dropped me off on his way to work and I had an hour before class. I decided to put it to use by burglarizing. I entered the Midway-Drexel and went to the top floor to begin my routine of covering the floors downward. As I got out of the elevator, a woman coming down a short flight of stairs from a penthouse apartment met me and asked who I was looking for. I made up a name and was told he didn’t live on that floor. The woman was Evelyn Peterson’s sister, Helen McDonald, and she was on her way to work at Billings. I rode the elevator with her, left the building and went to another apartment building south of there, but couldn’t gain admittance.
“‘I returned to the hotel and again went to the top floor. This time, I heard someone shouting and banging on the door on the penthouse apartment. I looked up the staircase and saw Margaret Peterson, another of Evelyn Peterson’s sisters, trying to open the door with her key. I asked her if she needed help and she said her key did not work and perhaps her sister was playing a trick on her. She said she had just gotten off work and was anxious to eat breakfast and go to bed. Since she couldn’t get into the apartment, she decided to have breakfast elsewhere and return.
“‘I left with her, but didn’t leave the building. When Margaret Peterson referred to her sister, I thought she meant Helen McDonald, who I knew had already left the apartment, so I believed there would be no one home. The door to the penthouse was located in an area that couldn’t be seen from the hallway, so I thought I could break in the door by forcing it. To make certain no one was home, I knocked on the door.
“‘As I was knocking, the door latch clicked and the door opened. Evelyn Peterson stood there with a blanket around her. She was in a daze and appeared to be hurt. I thought she might have slipped and fallen, or maybe something exploded in the apartment, so I led her to a chair and looked around. She asked me to phone Billings Hospital for her sister and gave me a phone number, but I got no answer and began to realize that my position was precarious as I didn’t want to have to explain what I was doing there. I left the apartment, rode the elevator to the lobby, and informed the manager that a tenant had been injured.
“‘At that time, I didn’t know the names of the people involved and didn’t know a crime had occurred. I believed that Evelyn Peterson had been injured in an accident. Nine months later, when I was arrested, I was told that my fingerprints matched those found in the Peterson apartment and was charged with assault and robbery. And, of course, I was identified by the manager as the man who had told him about Evelyn Peterson.’
“News reports of the incident speculated that the assailant was holding the door from inside, thus preventing Margaret Peterson from entering.
“‘If my case had gone to trial,’ Bill says, ‘Margaret Peterson would have had to testify that I was with her when she was trying to open the door, so I could not have been responsible for her sister’s injuries.'”
For some reason Dolores Kennedy tries to cast doubt on Heirens’ involvement in the attack on Peterson, acting as if the recovered fingerprints of Heirens inside Evelyn Peterson’s apartment might not be his stating, “Bill’s fingerprints were compared with the lone ‘smudged’ fingerprint found on the wall in the Drexel Avenue apartment of Evelyn Peterson,” trying to argue that they were “smudged,” therefore maybe they weren’t his as she seemed to be implying. She cements this view with Heirens’ statement:
“I was told that my fingerprints matched those found in the Peterson apartment and was charged with assault and robbery.”
Again, seeming to try and cast doubt on the match, and indeed elsewhere in her book she attempts to cast doubt on other fingerprints matched to Heirens in the murders he pled guilty to. But why should we doubt the match in the Peterson case, when Heirens himself says in his own words that he was there in the apartment building and even in the victim’s apartment, saying he had found her after the attack? Clearly he was there, by his own admission.
Kennedy also tries to cast doubt on the eye witness statements, particularly that of Evelyn Peterson, the victim herself in the attack, directly accusing her of being pressured by the police to falsely identify Heirens in her attack, stating:
“Despite her protestation that ‘I saw the man for a minute and I wouldn’t be able to identify him,’ Peterson acquiesced, flew back to Chicago from her residence in Fort Dodge, Iowa, and viewed Bill in a police lineup. Her response of ‘I am more inclined than not to say he is the man, but I must think about it because I am confused,’ satisfied police, and they determined that the fingerprint belonged to Bill.”
Again, Kennedy’s accusations against the victim and witnesses fall flat, as Heirens says he was there in the building and in the apartment, so why doubt the victim identification? Why is she so determined to try and cast doubt on the fingerprint identification and the eye witness identifications with no evidence to support her accusations in the Peterson case? Again, Heirens’ own admission he was present makes her dispute on the print and identifications a moot point, as it’s direct evidence of his involvement in the crime; it’s Heirens stating first-hand that he was present at the crime scene when the crime occurred.
Addressing Heirens’ other claims that he makes to Dolores Kennedy, that he never went to the roof and entered Peterson’s apartment through her skylight window, author Lucy Freeman, stated the following in her book, “Before I Kill More…” on page 38 in regards to burglaries committed by William Heirens:
“Police reported that defecation and urinations frequently appeared in the burglarized rooms. Feces were sometimes left in the middle of the floor or the bathtub, or perhaps in a jewelry or handkerchief box. They had been found, too just outside the trap door through which the assailant had entered Miss Peterson’s apartment, according to Officer Arthur T. Linderman, who took the official photographs of most of the scenes of the crimes for the police department.”
According to Lucy Freeman, Officer Arthur T. Linderman, who photographed the crime scenes of many of the cases committed by Heirens, that at the Evelyn Peterson crime scene, detectives found human feces left near her skylight window, just like many of his other burglaries, which seemed to be committed for the thrill of it; that Heirens was doing his crimes because to him they were fun, doing them for a thrill. And the fact that he defecated on the roof indicates he was indeed up there, outside of her skylight window as the circumstantial evidence would suggest from the pattern established in his other burglaries.
His final claim to Kennedy involved Margaret Peterson, the sister of Evelyn Peterson, insisting that he could not have been in the apartment attacking Evelyn Peterson, because he and Margaret Peterson were outside banging on the door to the apartment:
“‘If my case had gone to trial,’ Bill says, ‘Margaret Peterson would have had to testify that I was with her when she was trying to open the door, so I could not have been responsible for her sister’s injuries.'”
It’s very convenient for Heirens to claim that Margaret Peterson would have made claims that some how absolve him when the witness was no longer alive to refute his accusation. Where was she during his initial appeals in the 1940’s and ’50’s, why didn’t she say something at that time? Or why didn’t Heirens during his initial appeals? Or when he initially plead guilty, why didn’t either he or she say anything then? His lawyers didn’t have the information on what she would have said? Heirens never mentioned it to them? Heirens never told them that he had an alibi witness that supposedly proved he didn’t attack Peterson? He never discussed the crimes he was pleading guilty to with his lawyers? Wasn’t it also very possible based just on his own story that because he saw Hellen McDonnell leave the apartment and saw Margaret Peterson struggle and fail to get into the apartment, that he decided the apartment was therefore empty and safe to break into, resulting in him walking to the roof of the building? Or maybe Margaret was unable to gain entry to the apartment, because Heirens had already broken in therefore concocted an alibi for why he was in the apartment with the unconscious victim?
It stretches believability to argue that Heirens was innocent in the Evelyn Peterson case, as his fingerprints were found in the victim’s apartment. Eye witnesses, including the victim herself and the building superintendent, David Vosberg, identified Heirens as being in the victim apartment and in the building on the day in question. Circumstantial pattern evidence was located in the form of the human feces found outside the Skylight window of the victim’s apartment, again indicating Heirens was involved, and you also had the circumstantial evidence that Heirens was a burglar, who admitted he was in the building on the day in question looking to break into apartments that day. The evidence is so strong, that even in arguing his innocence in the case, he had to admit that he was there and did in fact help the victim and spoke to David Vosberg, which would be direct evidence of his involvement. The crime even occurred near the University of Chicago, where Heirens was going to college at the time, with the building now demolished and turned into a parking lot for the very same college. In fact the evidence is so strong in this case that it demonstrates that Evelyn Peterson was extremely lucky that day, and could have ended up the next murder victim of a serial killer, but for whatever reason, perhaps because of a fear of being caught, or guilt over attacking her, Heirens spared Peterson’s life that day.
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