1960s Timeline

June 25, 1962 - James H. Vance Jr., the 18-year-old former Marine who confessed to the killing of two teenage girls, began a series of psychiatric and brain tests today. Vance is accused of killing Noreen Buckley, 17, and Margaret Ann Kennedy, 16, with a tire wrench. Vance confessed early yesterday after calling a detective to his cell. He was said to have told the following story: On Wednesday night, he met the girls, former schoolmates of his, at a Morristown luncheonette,

June 24, 1962 - Police said today that 18-year-old James H. Vance Jr. had signed a three-paragraph statement admitting he killed two Morris Plains, N.J., teenage girls last week. The youth was charged yesterday with the slaying of Noreen Buckley, 17, and Margaret Ann Kennedy, 16. The bodies were found badly beaten last Thursday in a densely wooded area. Yesterday, Vance had maintained his innocence, but the police said he volunteered a confession early today. Frank C. Scerbo,

June 23, 1962 - An 18-year-old former member of the Marine Corps was charged today with the murder of two teenage girls whose bodies were found Thursday in a wooded area in Morris Township, N.J. The prisoner, James H. Vance Jr., was a schoolmate of the victims, Margaret Ann Kennedy, 16, and Noreen Buckley, 17. The girls were bludgeoned to death last Wednesday night. Mr. Vance, who had enlisted in the Marine Corps for a four-year hitch, was given an honorable medical discharge

June 22, 1962 - A West Berlin court has sentenced Dr. Albert Filbert, 56 years old, a former colonel in the Nazi S.S., to life imprisonment for the mass murder of Jews and Russians during World War II. The court found him guilty of the death of more than 10,000 persons shot in the area of Vilna and Grodno in the Western Soviet Union in 1941. Men, women, and children were herded together by Nazi guards under Filbert’s command and put to death in mass shootings, the verdict sai

June 21, 1962 - The dead bodies of two teenaged girls who had been badly beaten were discovered this afternoon in a densely wooded area about a mile from Morristown, N.J. The victims were identified as Noreen Buckley, 17, and Margaret Ann Kennedy, 16, both of Morris Plains. The girls’ parents had reported them missing at 1 a.m. today. The police said the two were last seen while shopping in Morristown about 8 p.m. Wednesday night. According to the police, the Kennedy girl tel

June 7, 1962 - Joseph Profaci (pictured in 1953), Brooklyn mobster and reputed leader of a powerful underworld syndicate, died of cancer today at the Southside Hospital at Bay Shore, Long Island. He was 64 years old. The gravel-voiced gangster was reported to have led a mob that has been feuding with another Brooklyn underworld organization known as the Gallo gang. Profaci was once described as “one of the most powerful underworld figures in the United States.” Robert F. Kenn

May 27, 1962 - A young man ambushed and killed his aunt and uncle in their Iowa farm-house last night, then drove four cousins home from a dance and killed three of them, Sheriff John Wallerich of Martinsburg said today. A Midwest alert was sent out for Gayno Gilbert Smith, 24, wanted on a murder warrant. Those killed in the shootings were Andy McBeth, 50; his wife, Dora, 40; their twin son and daughter, Amos and Anna, 20, and a divorced daughter, Donna Kellogg, 17. The searc

May 25, 1962 - Frankie Carbo went to Alcatraz Penitentiary today at his own request. The 57-year-old underworld figure had been in Los Angeles County Jail awaiting his appeal on a Federal conviction of attempting to obtain a share of the contract of Don Jordan, former welterweight champion, by threatening bodily harm to the boxer’s manager, Don Nesseth, and a fight promoter, Jackie Leonard. Carbo was a gunman with Murder, Inc. before transitioning into one of the most powerfu

May 23, 1962 - The New York Civil Liberties Union today asked New York Police Commissioner Michael J. Murphy to institute disciplinary proceedings against Captain Albert Seedman (pictured left) and Assistant Chief Inspector Raymond V. Martin for “excessive and improper use of force” against Anthony Portelli and Anthony Dellernia (pictured right). Portelli and Dellernia have been charged with the slaying last Friday of Detectives Luke Fallon, 56, and John P. Finnegan, 28, both

May 22, 1962 - New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller pledged last night his continuing support of measures needed by the police to combat crime. Addressing 600 delegates at the annual dinner of the Police Conference of New York in Monticello, the Governor declared, “The battle against crime requires constant vigilance and fresh effort.” “So long as the hoodlum makes the streets of our cities unsafe,” he said, “so long as the narcotics pusher conducts his evil business, so long

May 17, 1962 - James R. Hoffa was arrested tonight and charged with assaulting Samuel Baron, a 59-year-old Teamsters Union subordinate, for speaking back to him. Mr. Hoffa told reporters he would have “absolutely nothing” to say about the incident. Mr. Hoffa, 49, was booked at the First Precinct police station in Washington, D.C. Mr. Baron, field director of the warehouse division of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, charged that Mr. Hoffa had knocked him down twice

May 16, 1962 - New York Police Commissioner Michael J. Murphy (pictured left with Mayor Wagner) today called on the extra policemen who have been assigned to parks and recreation facilities to keep those areas free of muggers, molesters, and degenerates. The Commissioner addressed 600 policemen, part of the 1,087 reinforcements assigned to city recreation areas for the summer. Mr. Murphy said: “Certainly, if there is any group that has a prior moral claim to the services of t

Mar. 27, 1962 - Most of the murders committed in New York City last year were not planned, nor were they associated with underworld activity. The majority were committed at home in family disputes. There were 483 homicides in 1961, an increase of 93 over 1960. Eighty-seven percent resulted in arrests. These were the highlights of a study of last year’s homicides released today by Police Commissioner Michael J. Murphy. A spokesman for Mr. Murphy said one reason for the rise in

Mar. 6, 1962 - New York Deputy Police Commissioner Walter Arm told an institute on police and community relations today that there had been 2,525 attacks on policemen in 1961, most of them of “the common garden variety of the individual being arrested and resisting arrest.” He said such attacks were “something which police everywhere contend with and which they generally regard as ‘part of the job.’” “However,” he continued, “there were 223 cases of attacks on police by group

Feb. 25, 1962 - New York City detectives and Federal narcotics agents seized pure heroin worth $20 million last night after subduing a longshoreman in a Bronx tenement. Edward F. Carey, deputy chief inspector of the New York Narcotics Bureau, called the seizure “the second largest ever made by law-enforcement agencies in this country.” The heroin, weighing 88 pounds, was in 66 plastic packets in three plaid airline canvas bags. The suspect was identified as Anthony Fuca (pict

Feb. 7, 1962 - New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller today spared the life of 18-year-old Salvatore Agron (pictured in 1959), who had been scheduled to die in the electric chair for the gang killing of two 16-year-old boys in a New York playground two years ago. Agron, known as the Cape Man or Dracula because he had worn a red-lined nurse’s cape on the night of the killings, had been in the death house for more than a year. The Governor signed an order commuting the youth’s de

Jan. 31, 1962 - In an unexpected move, New York District Attorney Frank S. Hogan appealed to Governor Rockefeller today to spare the life of Salvatore Agron (pictured), the 18-year-old youth awaiting execution in Sing Sing. Agron, known sometimes as the Cape Man or Dracula because he wore a red-lined nurse’s cape, was convicted in the gang killing two years ago of two 16-year-old boys in a West Side Manhattan playground. The youth’s two lawyers asked that the death sentence t

Jan. 28, 1962 - Alvin “Creepy” Karpis (pictured in 1936), once listed as United States Public Enemy No. 1, is seeking a deportation parole that would allow him to return to his native Montreal. Karpis, 53 years old, has been in Alcatraz Prison for 25 years. Karpis was a child when his parents migrated to Topeka, Kan., from Montreal. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiracy in the 1933 kidnapping of William Hamm, a brewer from St. Paul, Minn. The gang that did the

Jan. 19, 1962 - Five persons were held today in $100,000 bail each as a result of a Brooklyn raid Thursday in which $3,500,000 worth of heroin was seized. Jacques L. Angelbin (pictured center), 34, a Parisian television performer, and Francois Paul Scaglia, 34, said to be an owner of a Paris nightclub, were among those held. Federal narcotics officials said the arrests would seriously affect smuggling operations in France. They said practically all the heroin that entered thi

Jan. 18, 1962 - Raw heroin estimated to be worth $3,500,000 in the illicit market was found in the ceiling of a Brooklyn tenement today by Federal and city narcotics raiders. At least seven persons were arrested for questioning, including two Frenchmen. The cache was discovered after a detective had noticed two spots of wet plaster on the basement ceiling. He investigated, and out tumbled two plastic bags containing heroin. A quick search of the entire ceiling turned up 20 mo