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  SLAUGHTER ON

  NORTH LASALLE

  SLAUGHTER ON

  NORTH LASALLE

  ROBERT L. SNOW

  BERKLEY BOOKS, NEW YORK

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  SLAUGHTER ON NORTH LASALLE

  A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley premium edition / July 2012

  Copyright © 2012 by Robert L. Snow.

  Cover design by Oyster Pond Press.

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  ISBN: 978-1-101-58517-7

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  ALWAYS LEARNING

  PEARSON

  To Craig, Melinda, and Corbin

  and to

  Cindy, Dan, and Skylah

  PERSONS INVOLVED IN THE

  NORTH LASALLE STREET CASE

  Victims

  Robert Gierse—age 34, co-owner of B&B Microfilming Service Company, shared house with Robert Hinson

  Robert Hinson—age 27, co-owner of B&B Microfilming Service Company, shared house with Robert Gierse

  James Barker—age 27, best friend to Hinson and Gierse

  Police Investigators

  ORIGINAL INVESTIGATING OFFICERS:

  Lieutenant Joseph McAtee

  Sergeant Michael Popcheff

  Sergeant James Strode

  Sergeant Pat Stark

  Sergeant Robert Tirmenstein

  OFFICERS INVOLVED IN THE 1990S:

  Detective Jon Layton

  Lieutenant Louis Christ

  Lieutenant Charles Briley

  OFFICERS INVOLVED IN THE 2000S:

  Sergeant Roy West

  Deputy Deborah Borchelt

  Select Other Notable Persons

  Mary Cavanaugh—supposed witness to crime

  Floyd Chastain—former coworker of Carroll Horton’s

  James T. Cole—Louise Cole’s husband

  Louise Cole—secretary at B&B Microfilming Service Company

  Ilene Combest—Robert Gierse’s ex-girlfriend

  Ted Gierse—brother of victim Robert Gierse

  Fred Harbison—employee of Ted Uland’s in his oil business

  Carroll Horton—Diane Horton’s ex-husband

  Diane Horton—Robert Gierse’s girlfriend at the time of his death

  John Karnes—friend of the three victims and discoverer of the crime

  David Lynn—April Lynn Smoot’s husband

  Aleene Marcum—Robert Hinson’s girlfriend at the time of his death

  Angel Palma—Fred Harbison’s daughter

  Carol Schultz—investigative reporter

  April Lynn Smoot—Robert Gierse’s ex-girlfriend

  Ted Uland—Gierse and Hinson’s former employer at Records Security Corporation

  Edward Dean Watson—insurance agent

  Wava Winslow—James Barker’s girlfriend at the time of his death

  Table of Contents

  Part One: 1971

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Part Two: 1991

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Part Three: 2000

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  PART ONE

  1971

  CHAPTER ONE

  “I just scored number twenty-five!”

  James Barker couldn’t keep from grinning as he bragged to his friend Robert Hinson about his latest sexual conquest. The woman had just gotten dressed and left minutes ago. Barker had watched through the blinds until she had driven away and then ran back to the telephone. He needed to take a shower, but that could wait. What couldn’t wait was calling Bob Hinson and rubbing it in. It was nearing the end of 1971, and twenty-seven-year-old Barker knew that neither Hinson nor his other close friend Robert Gierse stood much chance of catching him. He was going to win! Gierse had only scored with twenty women so far that year, while Hinson, because he had uncharacteristically become emotionally involved and dated the same woman for almost an entire month, had scored with only eighteen.

  In just a little over a month, on December 31, there would no longer be any doubt about which of the three friends was the most successful with the ladies. Barker knew that he couldn’t gloat forever about his victory, but he still planned to savor it for a while. And if he knew his two friends, they would undoubtedly demand a rematch in 1972.

  At the beginning of 1971, Gierse, Hinson, and Barker had entered into a friendly competition with one another. None of them were one-woman type of guys. They all liked to date around. And so, as might be expected, they’d had conversations and friendly arguments about who was the smoothest with the ladies, each man declaring he was. They finally decided to put it to the test. They would see who, by the end of 1971, could have sex with the most women. But to make it more difficult, one of the rules for the competition was that, in order to count, none of the women could have slept with either of the
other two men. This meant that the women in 1971 would have to be mostly new, as the three men had often dated and shared the same women.

  So far, by the end of November 1971, the total stood at sixty-three women, with Barker in the lead at twenty-five. The loser of the competition, the three men had agreed, would have to treat the others to an expensive dinner at a fine restaurant. It would be a great meal for the winner, who could not only gloat, but also make the loser pay to hear about it. To keep a running total of their sexual conquests, the three men maintained a scorecard at the North LaSalle Street house where Gierse and Hinson lived. At the end of each month the men would record in an address book the names of the women they had slept with. No real proof was required. The three men all knew one another well enough to trust the others not to cheat.

  The three bachelors, all good-looking and smooth-talking, were known around Indianapolis in 1971 as men who worked hard and played hard. At thirty-four, Bob Gierse was the oldest of the group; both Bob Hinson and Jim Barker were twenty-seven. The three of them were the best of friends and hung out together constantly. They didn’t believe in doing anything halfway. They always threw themselves totally into their work, but they also knew how to really enjoy themselves in their off time.

  Several years earlier, all three men had been employed by the Bell and Howell Company in Chicago. Among other things, Bell and Howell manufactured microfilm equipment and supplies, which is the department the three men had worked in. Barker now worked as a service manager for the Bell and Howell plant in Indianapolis, having moved to the city a few years earlier, following his former coworkers Gierse and Hinson. They told him they had wanted to look for new business opportunities, but Barker liked the security of having a job with a company he could depend on. Gierse and Hinson had already changed jobs three times, working for two different microfilm companies over the previous couple of years.

  By November 1971, Gierse and Hinson had just started their own already extraordinarily successful microfilm company called B&B (for Bob & Bob) Microfilming Service Company, located only a little over a mile from the modest white bungalow they shared on North LaSalle Street.

  Barker lived alone in a small house at 1535 North Rural Street on the east side of Indianapolis, about a half mile from Gierse and Hinson’s house at 1318 North LaSalle Street. Neither house would ever be part of a home tour, but for three single men, the houses fit their purposes.

  When first coming to Indianapolis, Gierse and Hinson had rented, but in 1970 Gierse had taken over a $9,200 mortgage for the two-bedroom home on North LaSalle. And while the small house sat in the midst of a quiet middle-class neighborhood on the east side of Indianapolis, where the residents had always enjoyed tranquil, peaceful evenings, neighbors would later tell the police that ever since the two men had moved into the house there had been a constant party going on. Young women were always coming and going, but never quietly, it seemed. The music at the house, the neighbors complained, blared day and night, and the liquor apparently never stopped flowing.

  The competition to win the contest became so intense that near the end of 1971, according to the Indianapolis Star newspaper, a neighbor of Barker’s warned him, “Jim, you’re not going to live long. You can’t stand the pace.” But during 1971, neither Barker nor the other two men worried about their health or even considered slowing down. Each one had believed when they started the contest that he would be the winner.

  Yet still, even though their contest demanded constant womanizing, the three men, when establishing the rules for the competition, also reportedly made it a part of the agreement to never set up dates for Friday nights. That was the night the three of them would prowl cheap bars, the kind of places where the ceilings always had water stains and the vinyl seat cushions were always torn.

  Going to lowbrow taverns had been a part of their friendship from the start. It was a bonding experience that they all enjoyed. But a big part of the reason for doing this, it would later be found, was the ego boost they got out of it. They could go to these bars and feel superior to everyone else there. Also, and very importantly, these bars were great for picking up the type of women they liked, though seldom without a bit of confrontation with the other men who hung out there. None of the three men cared if the woman he was trying to pick up was there with another man. A shoving match or actual fistfight wasn’t uncommon, or even unwelcome. All three of the men knew how to fight and frankly enjoyed it when someone challenged them.

  On the last Friday of November 1971, Hinson had gotten into a fistfight with the boyfriend of a go-go dancer at the Hi Neighbor Tavern on West 10th Street in Indianapolis, the scuffle breaking out after Hinson had reportedly patted the dancer on her buttocks. Hinson, at six feet two and weighing 255 pounds, knew how to use his fists and had pummeled the boyfriend.

  Other than on Friday nights, however, there was a steady stream of young women in and out of the North LaSalle Street house throughout all of 1971, and also in and out of Barker’s house on North Rural Street, several blocks west. Neighbors would later tell the police that the women came and went at all hours, and seldom was it the same women. A young lady who began dating Hinson near the first of November 1971, later interviewed by the police, said that she never saw Barker or Gierse with the same woman twice. She also said they almost always had a drink in their hand. Hinson reportedly told the young lady when they started dating, “Don’t get involved. This is all for fun.” And, she found, he meant it.

  This contest among the three men, however, also had a serious side—throughout 1971, there began to be a number of ugly scenes at both North LaSalle and Barker’s house involving angry, jilted women. This would include yelling and screaming, and also cars squealing their tires as they left. A friend of the three men recounted a visit to the house on North LaSalle Street during the last of November 1971—upon stepping inside, he found two very angry young women making a loud scene in the living room, while in the bathroom a third, seminude, woman scrubbed Gierse’s back as he sat in the tub, apparently oblivious to what was going on in the other room.

  None of this, though, slowed the three men in their desire to beat the other two. Throughout the year, each man had put forth his best effort in order to be the winner.

  On December 1, 1971, however, the contest ended abruptly, with no winner.

  A business acquaintance and friend of Gierse and Hinson, twenty-nine-year-old John Karnes—who would later become an Indianapolis police officer—called the offices of B&B Microfilming Service on the morning of December 1, 1971, and asked for Gierse or Hinson. He needed to talk to them about a business matter. The secretary at B&B, Louise Cole, told Karnes that the two men had mentioned to her as she was leaving the previous afternoon that they planned to work very late that night, and so they hadn’t come in yet. They were likely, she said, sleeping in. Karnes said she was probably right. He knew how hard Gierse and Hinson were working to make their new company a success. He told Cole he would try again later.

  But when Karnes checked back in later that afternoon, Mrs. Cole said she still hadn’t heard from either man and that she was becoming a bit concerned. While she knew well how both men loved to party, she also knew that Gierse and Hinson were extremely hardworking and dedicated to their new company. This just wasn’t like them. Karnes reassured her that they were probably fine, and then told her that he would drive by the North LaSalle Street address and check on them.

  Karnes arrived in the 1300 block of North LaSalle Street at about 2:15 P.M. on Wednesday, December 1, 1971. He found both Bob Hinson’s black Oldsmobile 442 and Bob Gierse’s blue Cadillac Coupe de Ville parked on the street in front of their house. This wasn’t unusual, as they always parked on the street since they kept their garage packed with files waiting to be microfilmed. But strangely, Karnes also noticed, Jim Barker’s blue Mustang sat there, too. That was unusual. Barker should have been at work.

  Karnes parked his own car and then walked around to the rear of the house to see if perhaps
the men were working on some files in the unattached garage. That could explain why they hadn’t answered the telephone. Maybe Barker had taken the day off to help them; Karnes knew that Gierse and Hinson had been trying to get Barker to quit Bell and Howell and come join them in their new company.

  It was a chilly December day, with the temperature in the midthirties. There had been some light freezing drizzle and snow flurries earlier, but Karnes knew that the weather wouldn’t stop the men from working in the garage. Very little would stop them.

  However, when he didn’t see anything in the backyard other than two lawn chairs and a red charcoal grill, and no one in the garage, Karnes walked back around front and up onto the porch of the house. A low electric charge raced through his stomach when he saw the morning newspaper still on the porch and found mail in the mailbox. Something wasn’t right. No matter how hard they partied or worked, he’d never known his friends to sleep in this late.

  “Bob?” Karnes called, pulling open the screen door and knocking. “Bob, are you there?” When no one answered, he tried the front door and found it unlocked. That worried him because the people in the neighborhood didn’t leave their doors unlocked. Now even more anxious, he called out again before finally pushing open the front door of the quiet, darkened house, the odor of stale beer instantly assailing his nostrils. “Is anyone here?”

  When Karnes stepped into the living room and saw the twenty or so empty Stroh’s beer bottles scattered around, and spied a coat hanging on one of the dining room chairs, he felt a cool wave of relief wash over him. He’d been silly to worry about them. The men were simply sleeping off a hard night of drinking after all. Shaking his head at himself, he walked through the living room full of mismatched furniture and started to enter the short hallway, still calling out for the men, his footsteps seeming abnormally loud on the worn gray-and-black-spotted white tile. As he reached the corner of the hallway, though, Karnes stopped and looked down at something odd. There appeared to be a footprint on the hallway floor in what looked like blood. He knew it couldn’t be that but wondered what might have made it. After looking at the reddish brown impression for a moment, Karnes continued on, trying to imagine where it could have come from.