Part IV: Clue of the Killer’s CALLING CARD

Parts I, II, and III of this Real Detective article are below

The two officers went rampaging through the place, using their training to single out the obvious hiding places of so incriminating a piece of evidence as a murder gun. But they couldn't find it.

Then Dockum spied a suitcase which, when picked up, seemed fully packed. He pried its lock open, rummaged through an assortment of men’s clothing, and finally struck a hard metallic object with his hand.

The Norwood detective drew out a fully-loaded .38 caliber revolver. Familiar as he was with Anthony Overberg's .38, the officer could not believe he had it in his hand after two and a half years.

It took Kiley to verify the discovery. "Sure, there's Davis's special grips and Wilson's trigger guard!" he exclaimed. "Wait'll Fritz hears this."

Mrs. Linna Louise Carter, wife of the suspect, was revived and taken to Louisville headquarters. There, shown the weapon, she fainted again. With a doctor now in attendance, the wife refused, between sobs, to talk. But she did agree to go back to Norwood the following morning with Kiley and Dockum.

Her arrival on Saturday, January 20, was an event, what with half the city already celebrating, news of the case's solution. Flashlight bulbs popped and Mrs. Carter fainted twice more.

At headquarters, Dr. Ventress, the deputy coroner, restored Mrs. Carter. Waiting with questions were Prosecutor Carson Hoy, Assistant District Attorney Royal Martin, Fritz and his detectives.

Mrs. Carter realized the hopelessness of the situation, hut she refused to speak. She seemed overwhelmed by the crowd around her. Martin was aware of this and that she had taken a liking to Detective Dockum, so he urged the others to leave her alone with the officer.

It was not long before Dockum was able to summon Assistant District Attorney Martin into the room. Mrs. Carter then confessed to the assistant prosecutor that her husband, Frank Dudley Carter, had murdered Anthony H. Overberg. She consented to make a full statement before Prosecutor Hoy and a stenographer from his office.

"Frank told me he had killed the officer the night it happened," she began. "I went to the movies and he left me. 'I'm going to knock over a sucker or two,' he said.

"Later, when I met him again, he had a bad cut on his left leg, his trousers were torn, and he smelled of vanilla. When I asked him what happened, he told me of getting into a fight with a police officer. He said a lot of bottles were broken, his leg was cut and vanilla spilled on him.

"He showed me the officer's pistol, saying he had lost the one he usually carried. Then Frank said, 'I. had to shoot that fellow when he was getting the best of me. I guess he's dead.'

"The next morning we read in the papers that he was dead, so Frank and I. skipped to Louisville, where we used to live."

When this statement was signed, Chief of Police Fritz, on Prosecutor Hoy's order, wired the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Chicago to arrest Frank Carter at Great Lakes. He also asked the detention of Mrs. Florence Klawson as a material witness.

Then Fritz dispatched the Overberg pistol and the three lethal bullets to the FBI laboratory in Washington, asking for an immediate report. This, received the following Monday, confirmed the fact that Overberg had been slain with his own pistol.

In Chicago, Frank Carter, arrested just one hour before he was scheduled to go overseas at his own request, made no attempt to deny the crime. He told the FBI men, "They've got plenty on me, and I know it."

On Tuesday Martin, Fritz, Dockum, Kiley, and Hein reached the Windy City. Hein, the Norwood druggist, immediately picked Carter from a lineup as the bandit who had held him up on June 27, 1942. Carter admitted this holdup and more than fifty others in the Greater Cincinnati area.

Furthermore, he readily confessed the Overberg murder.

"I had to shoot him," he told, Martin and Fritz, "or he'd have shot me. He was a game guy. I've never forgotten his face."

The Klawson girl, in Carter's presence, told how Carter had committed holdups while he left her waiting in her car, and how he had threatened her life when she became engaged to another man. Carter laughingly agreed that she spoke the truth.

The Naval authorities released Carter to the Norwood authorities. They also discharged him dishonorably on the grounds that he had concealed his criminal record when enlisting. Carter waived extradition back to Norwood, where he was identified by Lawson, Coors and Mr. and Mrs. Burroughs as the Overberg slayer.

Now the Covington police became vitally interested in the youth, never having been fully convinced that Minch was the actual slayer of Conry, the liquor store proprietor. Chief Fee and Detectives Seiter and Hall questioned Carter about this crime, and although he admitted several Covington holdups he denied the shooting of Conry.

On January 24, Prosecutor Hoy went before Judge Frederick L. Hoffman and requested the convening of a special grand jury. The court issued the call. The next day two indictments were voted against Carter. One charged commission of a murder during a felony, and the other the shooting of Sergeant Anthony H. Overberg.

Carter, immediately arraigned before Mayor Frank J. Ward, sitting as magistrate in Norwood Municipal Court, pleaded not guilty. Subsequently, through attorneys, he claimed insanity, but on February twenty-eighth two state alienists adjudged him sane.

Carter went to trial on March 20th. Eight days later the jury brought in a verdict of guilty without recommendation of clemency. This meant a mandatory death sentence for the erstwhile holdup man whose vanity in retaining the pistol of the man he killed resulted in his undoing.

The name Florence Klawson is fictitious and is used here to protect an innocent person-EDITOR

Part III: Clue of the Killer’s CALLING CARD

Parts I and II of this Real Detective article are below

In spite of these disappointments, Fritz had been keeping the promise to himself and Sergeant Overberg that he would overlook no lead in the crime no matter where it took him. Although other duties encroached on his time, the officer was ever ready to plunge back into the murder mystery at the drop of a clue.

Thus it was on April 25, 1944, that Fritz, Flower and Hein rushed to Colorado Springs, where a prisoner, seized in a $3,700 diamond robbery, had confessed he once killed a policeman and left his gun behind.

The man, who looked discouragingly unlike the Norwood bandit, was later found hopelessly insane.

Often, when alone at his desk, Chief of Police Fritz would open a drawer, remove the .45 caliber automatic and the three leaden pellets and study them. He wondered, with a shake of his head, whether an opportunity ever would come when he might tie them up to a callous killer.

THE year 1945 arrived, and on January 18, Detective Kenneth Vassie received a visitor at police headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky.

It was a friend who during war-times held down the position of auxiliary policeman. He had a problem which seemed to demand professional attention, and Vassie was an offcer to whom he could talk freely.

"It's about a fellow who's threatened my life," the auxiliary officer said.

Vassie's brows knitted. "Why don't you grab him and bring him in? We'll cool him off down here."

The friend shook his head. "It's not as easy as that - he isn't around right now. Anyhow, I am not so concerned for myself. I could handle the guy. I'm worried about my girl."

"How come?"

"He threatened her, too. Rather, he threatened both of us through her. I've never seen the mug face to face."

"What are these threats all about?"

"It's a long story, but I'd better go back to the beginning. I guess you know my girl-she's Mrs. Florence Klawson."

Vassie whistled Mrs. Klawson only nineteen, was a Louisville society belle. She had made and dissolved an unfortunate marriage. This was no hysterical woman, Vassie decided, but a well-educated, poised post-deb. His friend’s story increased in importance.

Several questions were on the tip and of his tongue, but the auxiliary policeman was already launching his story, so Vassie allowed him to continue.

"This girl of mine," Vassie's friend said, "met this fellow about a year ago, right after her divorce. He was a young chap, with good looks and apparently a lot of money. She had a convertible coupe and they did a lot of driving around.

"Every once in awhile this fellow would tell her to stop the car and wait for him. He'd get out and leave her for about half an hour or so; then, when he came back, they'd resume the evening activities--visit night clubs or roadhouses. As I said, he always had plenty of money.

"Well, one night the coupe was stopped in a police search for a bandit who had just robbed a store. When the cops approached, this fellow said to the girl, 'Tell them I was with you all evening.' He backed up his words with a pistol, which he stuck into her ribs.

"My girl gave the fellow his alibi, but before the cops left she realized he was the bandit they were after. He admitted it. Furthermore, he showed her the pistol and said 'I got this from a fellow I once killed. I call it Tony in his honor. Not a bad idea, eh?'

"Mrs. Klawson was horrified. After that, although he kept persisting, she never went out with him again.

"Then she met me. This fellow became jealous. Last week, when he was on a furlough, he came around to see her. He said, 'If you don't give that guy up, I'll hide in your rumble seat some night and bump both of you off.'"

Vassie rubbed his chin. He had heard plenty of stories in his day, but this was one of the strangest of all.

"You said something about a furlough," he declared. "Is that bandit in the armed services?"

"Yes-in the Navy. It seems things got a little hot for him about three months ago, so he decided to hide out in a uniform. But how he got in, I don't know-seeing he told my girl he'd served time in the Texas State Penitentiary."

"What's his name?"

"Frank Carter. He's married, and his wife lives in Middletown, right near here."

Vassie knew Middletown as a tiny village with a population of not over fifty.

"What do you think we ought to do?" the auxiliary policeman asked.

"Keep your girl away from this fellow and let me know if he comes back to town."

"My girl's in Chicago."

"Then there's nothing to worry about."

"But he's at Great Lakes."

"That's bad. Anyhow, keep your eye out for him."

Vassie didn't know anything he could do, since the alleged bandit named Carter was out of the state.

That night, however, he went to the Louisville criminal files and discovered a record for Frank Dudley Carter of Middletown. His prison sentence in Texas was included in the file.

Vassie recalled a few sentences from his friend's story, "'I got this from a fellow I killed. I call it Tony in his honor.' "

A man, Vassie thought, had been killed. The gun taken from him had been christened Tony by the murderer.

Vassie tried to remember the victims of the unsolved Kentucky murder cases, but could recall none whose name was Tony.

Casually he walked over to a stack of wanted notices supplied by out-of-town police agencies, and after considerable desultory reading he came across the Norwood, Ohio, crime in 1942.

As he read the victim's name Anthony H. Overberg-the Louisville detective wondered whether, by any stroke of coincidence, this could possibly have been the death referred to by Carter, the self-admitted murderer.

Reading the circular further, Vassie saw that Overberg's gun was wanted almost as badly as the killer.

Tony! Missing gun! The course he must pursue began to shape up in Vassie's mind.

FRITZ regarded Vassie's telephone call with the same skepticism he had been viewing all leads of late. Even the nickname given the gun failed to impress him.

But he appreciated the Louisville officer's thoughtfulness in relaying the information, though he put little stock in the tip. However, having vowed to follow up every lead, Fritz told Vassie he would send some men down.

"They can go out and talk to this Carter's wife, anyhow," Fritz said.

Vassie told Fritz that he knew two of the three principals involved and they were trustworthy people.

"The only convincer," Fritz answered, "would be Anthony Overberg's revolver. If this Carter's got a pistol, it isn't likely he took it into the Navy with him. Maybe his wife knows where it would be. It's worth taking a chance on."

That noon Kiley and Dockum, on orders from Fritz, took the train to Louisville, about seventy-five miles to the southwest. By 7 o'clock they were in a car with Vassie, heading for the home of the Carters in Middletown, just outside Louisville.

The cottage was lighted, indicating someone was there.

"It's his wife," Vassie told the pair. "I made one of those ‘who is this’ telephone calls this afternoon and Mrs. Carter admitted her identity before I hung up on her."

Kiley and Dockum got out of the car. "This probably won't take but - a few minutes," the veteran Kiley told Vassie. "You want to wait in the car or come in with us?"

"I'd better wait here. We don't want to scare the woman. If she's not frightened by us, she might make some admissions."

Kiley pressed the doorbell. Soon the porch light went on, the door swung open and a young, slim woman stood before Kiley and Dockum.

"I'm sorry to disturb you," Kiley began, removing his hat, "but we're police officers from Norwood, Ohio, and --"

That was as far as he got. The woman's mouth dropped open, her eyes widened, a painful expression crossed her features, and she collapsed in a heap.


"Fainted, by gosh!" Kiley exploded. "And all I. said was Norwood! Hey, we're hot! Oh, Vassie!"

The last was a call for the officer in the car who had witnessed the scene in the lighted doorway. He came running.

"This gal's out," Kiley said, "and we've got the chance of a lifetime. Norwood means plenty to her. That gun could be in this house. You and Dockum take a quick look."

Part II: Clue of the Killer’s CALLING CARD

Part I of this Real Detective article immediately below

By morning the haggard, sleepless police of both cities found themselves empty-handed in more ways than one. Not only were they lacking a definite suspect, but the fingerprint men had found no worthwhile impressions either in the drugstore or on the .45 caliber pistol dropped by the slayer.

Fritz, before retiring for a few hours of needed rest, dispatched the weapon's serial number to the manufacturers, asking for the name of the dealer to whom it had been sold.

By nightfall, back on the job, he learned the gun was part of a consignment to a Louisville, Kentucky, sporting goods establishment which had gone out of business within the past year. Contact with a member of this firm revealed that no records of gun sales had been kept.

Fritz was disappointed.

To make his disappointment more keen, Fritz's pawnshop squad reported no results in connection with the Overberg pistol. The bandit apparently had made no effort as yet to dispose of it. Fritz ordered the weapon's description circularized to police departments throughout the by middlewest.

By this time, the Sergeant Overberg slaying had stunned the city of Norwood and brought its 35,000-odd citizens rallying to the raising of a fund to aid Overberg's young widow and her two small children, Carole Ann and Kathleen.

In addition, rewards totaling $700 were immediately offered for the apprehension of the slayers. Soon business firms began contributing sums until the price on the killer's head went over the $2,500 mark.

A FLOODING Of the police department with tips was the result. Fritz kept Kiley, Schultz, Dockum, and Flower always available to run them down. These particular tips involved only Norwood and its environs.

As they fizzled, the officers began spreading out. Thus on Friday, July 10, Fritz, accompanied by Flower and Hein the druggist, raced to Middletown and Hamilton to view suspects and check possible evidence.

In Hamilton the police had detained a youth whose shirt was found bloodstained, but he laid it to a nosebleed and produced a perfect alibi for the night of the murder.

At Middletown, a pawnbroker reported the recent sale of a .45 caliber automatic, giving the name of the purchaser. But the buyer, and he was not the wanted killer, still had the gun.

A military prisoner at Fort Thomas, just across the river from Cincinnati, was investigated by Schultz and Dockum, but this youth, returning A WOL with" a blood stained uniform, could not have been involved in the crime.

The weekend was the busiest ever put in by the Norwood and Cincinnati police, but no trace of Sergeant Overberg's killer was found.

The Monday morning teletype, however, brought Chief of Police Fritz news that a police officer had been slain in Oklahoma City on Saturday night.

According to the report, this officer, Patrolman James A. Long, thirty-two, had been shot four times while attempting to arrest a youth who was molesting a girl in the Municipal Park. The weapon used had been a .38 caliber revolver.

By this time Fritz was in possession of an autopsy report submitted by Doctors Ventress and Frank M. Coppock, the coroner, and the three bullets taken from Overberg's body. Overberg had died of internal hemorrhages, and the ballistic tests revealed that he had been shot with his own gun--a thirty-eight.

Fritz telephoned Oklahoma City for the slugs taken from Long, and these were dispatched airmail. Although Fritz held great hopes that the Oklahoma City killer might be the youth they were looking for in Norwood, examination of the slugs revealed that they could not have been fired from Overberg's gun. They did not match the bullets removed from the sergeant's body.

The Cincinnati police were also aware of the Oklahoma City crime. And on Monday night, July 13, Detective Chief Kirgan arrested three youths driving a car which bore Oklahoma plates.

The trio had no good reason for being in the Cincinnati area, and their replies to Kirgan's questions were suspicious. He notified Fritz who hurried over with Lawson and Coors, two of the drugstore murder witnesses.

When they failed to recognize any of the youths as being Overberg's slayer, Kirgan held the trio for the Oklahoma City authorities. Eventually they were absolved in Patrolman Long's death, though they were convicted of other charges.

Immediately following this incident, Fritz was without a definite lead of any kind for more than a month. Then the police of New Philadelphia advised him they were holding Ralph Straka in $10,000 bail on charges of attempting to kill a railroad detective.

Straka not only resembled the Norwood slayer, but he was carrying a .38 caliber pistol with special grips. But when Fritz, Flower, and Hein drove across the state for a talk with him, they soon realized he was not their man. Ultimately, Straka was found guilty of assault and theft charges.

All this time the police throughout the Midwest were closely cooperating with Fritz, having received from him numerous circulars describing the slayer, his abandoned .45 caliber weapon, and the .38 caliber pistol he had stolen from Overberg.

A number of robberies through out northern Kentucky, which state adjoins Ohio, kept the authorities there particularly busy, and in many instances they obtained a good description of the lone gunman who was committing the robberies. They found him not unlike Norwood's killer-young, tall, slim, and light-haired.

Then a crime occurred near Covington, late in November, which shocked the entire state. An armed thief broke into a crossroads store, held up the aged woman proprietor and sought her money.

When she protested and said she had none, he brutally held her hands over a hot stove until, agonizingly blistered, the woman was forced to reveal the cache of her savings. Obtaining the money, the thief then beat the store proprietor insensible and escaped.

Police Chief Chester Fee and Detective Al Seiter and Leroy Hall worked on this case for weeks, but all they could obtain was the victim's description of her tormenter. This tallied very closely with the description of the Norwood bandit killer.

STILL more violence lay ahead. On New Year's Day, 1943, Thomas Conry, 65-year-old proprietor of a liquor package store in Covington, turned from his cash register to find an armed youth standing in, front of him.

Conry, previously the victim of a holdup man, decided not to submit again. He dove for a pistol.

The bandit's gun exploded and Conry fell dead. Pursuit of the killer started almost immediately. Citizens were joined by police, and in the roundup of suspects was one Oliver Thomas Minch, a Kentucky "bad boy."

Minch had no weapon when seized, but witnesses identified him as the youth who ran from the Conry store. Plus this, the suspect had no alibi for the time of the crime.

Then to top it off, the aged woman proprietor of the crossroads store positively identified him as the bandit who had tortured her, on a November day of the year just past.

Chief of Police Fritz was exceptionally interested in Minch, since he closely resembled Overberg's slayer. With Detectives Kiley and Flower, he took Lawson, Coors and Hein across the river to view the suspect.

The witnesses were unable to pick the bandit suspect from a lineup.

Minch admitted the crossroads store robbery but emphatically denied he shot down Conry. However, he was put on trial for this crime convicted. On May 13, 1943, he received two consecutive life terms. The youth went to prison still protesting the Conry conviction.

Although Fritz was disappointed that Minch had not proven to be the killer he was after, he had reason to rejoice shortly afterwards when Kirgan's men caught a bandit red-handed in the Cincinnati water front area. As Detectives cornered him on a dock, he tossed an object into the river.

"What was that, a pistol?" Kirgan demanded.

"Find out," the bandit sneered.

He identified himself as Howard Rann, twenty-one, of Covington. Although about the right size and age, he lacked the Norwood killer's curly light hair.

Fritz's witnesses could not make up their minds.

"That pistol would settle it-if we could get it back," the Norwood - chief told Kirgan.

"We'll go after it," the Cincinnati detective chief replied. For a week a squad of officers used electromagnets on the bed of the Ohio and eventually recovered a revolver. But it wasn't the Overberg weapon.

Rahn was likewise convicted, but it wasn't in connection with the Norwood murder. And so Chief Fritz had suffered still another rebuff.

Part I: Clue of the Killer’s CALLING CARD

PISTOL pressed against the holdup man’s belly Sergeant Anthony H. Overberg, of the Norwood, Ohio, police, snapped a command, "Lay that gun of yours on the counter-and make it fast!"

Facing Overberg, hands upraised, stood a surprised youth. A moment before he had started backing the drugstore's proprietor, Howard J. Lawson toward a rear room where the robber knew there was a safe. He hadn't figured that an armed policeman would be concealed there.

Overberg was only one of ten Norwood officers hidden that night July 8, 1942, in as many local establishments --lying in wait for the boasted return of a bold young thug who had been terrorizing merchants in the greater Cincinnati area.

The trap had been arranged by Chief of Police Charles Fritz at the urging of Mayor Allen C. Roudebush and business leaders, following visits of the bandit to Wester's and Hein's pharmacies on Section and Sherman avenues respectively.

On June 27, the thug had taunted Hein as he relieved the druggist's cash register of $200 receipts. "When you see your cops," he had said, "tell them this town's soft pickin's. I'll be around some more." Now on this July night, it seemed as if the egotistical youth had fallen victim to a snare of his own making.

At Sergeant Overberg's command, he put down his .45 caliber automatic pistol on the glass counter. Looking on were Lawson and three customers--Mr. and Mrs. M. H. Burroughs and Joseph Coors--rooted to their positions near the soda fountain, where the thug had ordered them to remain.

Occasionally they would shift their eyes toward the two large plate glass windows, but it was 10:30 P.M. and the streets were deserted. There was no further help in sight.

They then saw Overberg make a move toward his handcuffs. In that very instant, the bandit snaked his hand back toward the counter. He seized his .45 and at the same, time hurled himself at Overberg. His left hand got a grip on Overberg’s gun.

The momentum of the thug's leap sent Overberg plummeting back against the prescription counter, where a cascade of bottles tumbled over the pair of struggling men.

The .45 went off with the boom of a cannon, its slug ploughing high into the woodwork of the partition upon at the rear of the store. It sent another shower of' glass down upon the men.

Overberg was powerful, but his opponent was lithe and tough. And the sergeant gradually felt his own .38 caliber service pistol being pressed back against him.

Then, to the horror of the watchers, it exploded violently three times. Sergeant Overberg loosed a strong deep groan and the .38 slipped from his grasp. Now it was in the possession of the thug, whose own big automatic had been knocked from his hand during the struggle.

As Overberg slumped to the floor, blood gushing from three severe wounds, the bandit whirled and brought the policeman's pistol level with the awed quartet.

"Don't make a move!" he snarled. "I'm getting out."

The left leg of his trousers was torn. His suit was smeared and reeking with vanilla, which had splashed over him from one of the bottles that had showered down upon him while he was struggling with Overberg.

Lawson and the customers watched him race into Franklin Avenue, run up the block and turn the corner of Alison.

Druggist Lawson then rushed into a phone booth.

Chief of Police Fritz, Mayor Roudebush and Hellman Buse, President of the Norwood Taxsavers' Association, were among a group of city officials waiting at police headquarters for the results of the bandit trap. Lawson's message deeply shocked the group.

Fritz hurriedly summoned Dr. W. H. Ventress, police surgeon and deputy coroner, an ambulance from the Good Samaritan Hospital, and every available officer. He dashed to Franklin and Courtland avenues, site of the Lawson store, and an intersection not far from the business center of the city.

Sizing up the situation, Fritz spread a cordon around the neighborhood. Obtaining a description of the thug -- about twenty-four, five-feet eleven, 165 pounds, light curly hair, suit stained with vanilla, trouser leg torn-he ordered it phoned back to headquarters and then flashed out to all squad cars.

"That guy can't get away!" he snapped to Detective Lee Kiley, one of his veteran officers.

Then he turned for a look at Sergeant Overberg, who lay unconscious. Dr. Ventress shook his head.

"Hit in the chest, groin and leg," he said. "He's in bad shape. Blood's going to be needed right away."

Fritz snapped an order to Kiley, who dashed into a phone booth and notified headquarters to rush a squad of blood donors to the hospital where Overberg would be taken.

Overberg was then loaded into the ambulance and rushed to the operating table. An hour later he was dead.

CHIEF OF POLICE FRITZ was stunned as this information reached him at the Lawson store, where he was still directing the work of fingerprint men and interrogating the witnesses.

The .45 caliber automatic had been gingerly lifted from the floor, dropped into a, cellophane bag, and rushed down to the laboratory. Fritz held high hopes of obtaining usable impressions from this gun, or a serial number that might point to its purchaser.

The chief was flabbergasted when his detectives and the squad officers began reporting back. Although plenty of passersby had seen the bandit run into Alison Avenue, none were able to say where he had gone from there. The police found no further trace of him, and figured he must have made a getaway in a parked car.

According to the accounts of the witnesses, the bandit's routine had varied little from the scores of other crimes he had committed in the Cincinnati area. He had walked in, ordered a soft drink, looked the situation over carefully, then gone to work behind his big, black, .45.

Lawson, the Burroughses, and Coors were certain he had run out with Overberg's pistol, and since this was missing, Fritz knew it would tag the youth as the killer if he could be found with the weapon.

Further, if he attempted to sell or hock it, the pistol might lead to his ultimate undoing. But there was a possibility Chief of Police Fritz feared: the bandit might dispose of the gun in the Ohio River. However, he made a mental note to put his pawnshop squad to work tracing the weapon on the following morning.

Overberg's gun was not an ordinary pistol, a fact which Fritz considered noteworthy. Special grips for the weapon had been designed the sergeant himself, and Norwood's ballistics expert, Harold Davis, had built and installed them. Furthermore, the weapon had a trigger guard rebuilt by armorer Oakley Wilson.

Word of the killing had been flashed to Cincinnati, where the bandit had been active before invading adjoining Norwood. As soon as he heard the news, Detective Chief Emmett D. Kirgan rushed his night staff out to comb the resorts for a youth who smelled of vanilla.

Fritz, speeding back to his own headquarters, directed the activities of a crack detective staff, which included, besides Kiley, such seasoned homicide investigators as Joseph Flower, Meredith Dockum, and George Schultz.

These men were directed to shake down stool pigeons and other sources of information for a line on the thug, and to raid several gambling dens which were known to be openly flaunting the law.

Fritz also notified the State Police and the Hamilton County sheriff's office to watch the highways for a lone youth smelling of vanilla, whose trouser leg was torn, and who, possibly, was in possession of Anthony Overberg's specially designed service pistol.

The combined efforts of these agencies filled both the Norwood and the Cincinnati headquarters with people. On hand to view photographs and suspects personally were Lawson, Mr. and Mrs. Burroughs, Coors and Peter Hein, the latter being the druggist victim of the bandit on June 27.

None of them were able to recognize the killer from pictures. And the negative shakes of their heads rapidly eliminated the numerous suspects caught by the police net.