Jan. 27, 1965 - George Whitmore Jr. (pictured April 25, 1964) is a 20-year-old with an IQ between 60 and 80 who has been portrayed in recent months as a vicious killer and rapist. Last night, in voices at times jubilant, at times breaking with emotion, his volunteer attorneys predicted that Whitmore would go down in legal annals as a classic case of “the wrong man.”
Whitmore was picked up in Brooklyn last April 24 for questioning about a purse-snatching. Though he had never been in trouble with the law, in the next 24 hours he confessed to the rape slaying of a 46-year-old Brooklyn woman, to the attempted rape of a 21-year-old Brooklyn nurse, and to the brutal murders of career girls Janice Wylie and Emily Hoffert in Manhattan on Aug. 28, 1963.
The next morning, Whitmore recanted the confessions, and his attorney said they had been made under duress. But police stuck by them. Largely on the basis of the alleged confessions, Whitmore was convicted of the attempted rape; a trial date was set in the killing of the Brooklyn woman, Minnie Edmonds; and he was indicted in the career girl killings. Brooklyn and Manhattan officials scrambled to see wo could bring him to trial first. Whitmore seemed a good bet for the electric chair.
Today, all bets are off. Another man was charged with the career-girl killings last night, and Whitmore’s attorneys said he would one day be freed, innocent of all charges. Following the arrest of Richard Robles, attorney Arthur H. Miller said: “This will positively prove George’s innocence in all three cases. This undoubtedly will be one of the cases they will study in law schools for a long time.”
Since they entered his case without pay, Miller and attorney Stanley Reiben have come to know George Whitmore as a quiet, devout youth, slow-witted but never aggressive.
The major evidence linking Whitmore to the career girl murders, aside from the alleged confession, was a photograph in his wallet. Police said at first it was a picture of Janice Wylie. The attorneys have an affidavit from a woman in Wildwood, N.J., Whitmore’s home town, stating it is a picture of her. And they have affidavits from three other persons in Wildwood stating that Whitmore was in New Jersey on Aug. 28, 1963. The evidence in the other cases, his attorney say, is also substantial, and they will attempt to have all charges dismissed. Meanwhile, Whitmore remains in detention.
Reiben, who has defended 52 accused murderers in his career, could not keep his voice from breaking last night as he said it was one of his most thrilling moments.
“When you get a fellow who is halfway strapped into the electric chair — I never lost one, and it’s my greatest fear — and you can extricate him, and he’s innocent…”

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