What with all the celebrating going on, this past week, last night was the first relaxing night at home Monsieur and I had had, all week! I had been anxious to see the "A Crime To Remember's" program on The Career Girls Murders, because I have known about the case for years. Back in the late 80's, or the early 90's, when I was still living in Bay Ridge the first time, I came across, in a used books wagon, a Dell paperback book about the case. It was called "The Victims," and it was by Bernard Lefkowitz, and Kenneth Gross.
When I saw the early previews for the above program, I knew immediately what the case was, and, as we were out Tuesday evening, when it was broadcast, Monsieur kindly taped it for me!
But first, some basic info. Like I wrote earlier, about November 9, on which both Kristallnacht and the John List Murders occurred, something must have been in the stars, on August 28, 1963. Because, while the Career Girls Murders were taking place in New York, in Washington D.C., Martin Luther King was leading a Freedom March, and delivering his famous "I Have A Dream" speech!!!!!!!!!
Can you imagine, darlings?????????????????????
As long as New York has existed, career girls have been flocking to it, long before yours truly got here! When this crime happened, the question of single women living on their own was questioned in a way that would be eerily mirrored ten years later, with the Roseann Quinn Murder, immortalized in fiction by novelist Judith Rosner, as "Looking For Mr. Goodbar!!!!!!!!!!"
The Career Girls were, actually, three young women--Patricia Tolles, 23, Janice Wylie, 21 and Emily Hoffert, 23, who were, at the time sharing apartment 3C, located at 57 East 88th Street, on Manhattan's even then fashionable Upper East Side. All of us wanted to be career girls, darlings; my Aunt Kathleen, who lived with her parents, was one, and I thought it was the most glamorous thing, working only from 9 to 5, (as opposed from, say 7am, till 11PM at night, especially with work and extracurriculars, which my upper school days consisted of; compared to this, careerism was easy!!!!!!) and then going out to dinner on Saturdays, with the Girls! How exciting! And by the time Marlo Thomas as Ann Marie and Mary Tyler Moore as Mary Richards came along, I was champing at the bit to be a breezy Career Girl!!!!!!!!!!
But the era of the murders was the one where all career girls of the day wanted to be Audrey Hepburn, as Holly Golightly, in "Breakfast At Tiffany's.!!!!!!!!" Not a bad thing to be, even in this day and age, loves!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The program was done with a voiceover narrating the story, someone enacting verbally, I think, the role of Patricia Tolles, who was the luckiest of the three--she survived, and only by the most fortuitous of circumstances. She was never home. Interestingly, one thing I learned, which I never knew (or recalled) was that on the day, one of the girls, Emily Hoffert, was planning to move out, to a place of her own, in nearby Murray Hill!!!!!!!!! Emily was a spinster schoolteacher type, who probably just wanted a quiet place to pursue her educational and literary pursuits; she is shown, when alive, often reading.
Janice Wylie and Emily Hoffert were the ones murdered. Janice, the daughter of writers Max and Phyllis Wylie, was a Child of Manhattan; the girls had known each other through jobs--both Janice and Patricia were magazine research clippers, and Emily had known Janice, I think, in college, and went on to become a teacher.
The way things went down was Emily was out of the house, moving stuff between her old and new places. Patricia was at work, where Janice actually should have been, but Janice, being a privileged Manhattan Child, and a party girl, was not one to go by any clock other than her own.
She was home, had just stepped out of the shower, and discovered some man had broken into the apartment! He spied Janice, tied her up, and raped her. Sometime, amidst or after all this, Emily walks into this horror, and he ties them up together. Emily then utters a phrase that many thought sealed their fate, though I think, without it, they would have been killed, anyway. Emily said to the perp, "I recognize your face, and I am going to tell the police." Whereupon, the girls were not just killed, but eviscerated; Janice's intestines were said to be strewn about the room!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When the story broke, career girls all over were terrified! And mothers in the suburbs clung more steadfastly to their daughters, urging them to stay home, and remain virgins!!!!!!!!! My parents even tried, with me, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Eventually, George Whitmore Jr. was fingered as the perp, due more to a Brooklyn detective's racism than first rate police work. It looked like he was going to do time for this, and he ultimately did time for a crime committed around the same time--the attempted rape and murder of Elba Borrero. On October 9, 1964, Nathan Delaney, a drug dealer, arrested for killing his competitor, Roberto Cruz Del Valle, pointed the finger at Ricky Robles, a friend of his. He recalled Robles showed up at his place on that day, covered in blood, saying how he had "killed some girls." He was eventually collared, and is in prison to this day.
Even more astounding is how he got into the apartment--though on the third floor, thirty feet up, he was able to scale the wall, the window was open, and in he went.
A set of circumstances that never should have been. Two girls murdered for drug money. One survivor, probably traumatized for life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is why, girls, it pays to lock up everything! I mean, in this day and age, I know there are people out there, like my struggling homosexual upstairs neighbor, Big Boy, who would love to steal my designer wardrobe! Which is why I keep a padlock on it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The program was a fascinating mixture of the murder, and the era of heady career girls, in those days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We still just wanna have fun today, honeys!!!!!!! Only now, we are a bit more careful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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