Once you get startled, it’s hard to stop. This September 1960 issue of Startling Detective tells readers that police are bungling the investigation into the murders of three Chicago women who had been found dead in Starved Rock State Park in Illinois. Two months after this issue hit newsstands, authorities arrested a park employee named Chester O. Weger, and a jury convicted him of one of the killings. However, this case is still controversial. Did police overlook hair samples that indicated more than one killer was present? Was Weger’s confession obtained unlawfully? Weger relatives and backers answer yes to both questions and say he was framed. The police, for their part, admit the fifty-year-old investigation wasn’t perfect, but say their predecessors arrested the right man. With evidence now generations old, there’s no easy resolution. The situation also illustrates one of the classic paradoxes of criminal justice: i.e., a convict who has no hope of parole unless he admits his guilt and takes responsibility for his crime, but who, conversely, has no hope of a retrial or dismissal unless he maintains his innocence. It’s a fascinating ongoing drama. This is our first posting of Startling Detective, but we plan to revisit this venerable true crime magazine a litte later and get into the stories in detail.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1967—First Space Program Casualty Occurs
Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when, during re-entry into Earth's atmosphere after more than ten successful orbits, the capsule's main parachute fails to deploy properly, and the backup chute becomes entangled in the first. The capsule's descent is slowed, but it still hits the ground at about 90 mph, at which point it bursts into flames. Komarov is the first human to die during a space mission. 1986—Otto Preminger Dies
Austro–Hungarian film director Otto Preminger, who directed such eternal classics as Laura, Anatomy of a Murder, Carmen Jones, The Man with the Golden Arm, and Stalag 17, and for his efforts earned a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, dies in New York City, aged 80, from cancer and Alzheimer's disease. 1998—James Earl Ray Dies
The convicted assassin of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., petty criminal James Earl Ray, dies in prison of hepatitis aged 70, protesting his innocence as he had for decades. Members of the King family who supported Ray's fight to clear his name believed the U.S. Government had been involved in Dr. King's killing, but with Ray's death such questions became moot. 1912—Pravda Is Founded
The newspaper Pravda, or Truth, known as the voice of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, begins publication in Saint Petersburg. It is one of the country's leading newspapers until 1991, when it is closed down by decree of then-President Boris Yeltsin. A number of other Pravdas appear afterward, including an internet site and a tabloid. 1983—Hitler's Diaries Found
The German magazine Der Stern claims that Adolf Hitler's diaries had been found in wreckage in East Germany. The magazine had paid 10 million German marks for the sixty small books, plus a volume about Rudolf Hess's flight to the United Kingdom, covering the period from 1932 to 1945. But the diaries are subsequently revealed to be fakes written by Konrad Kujau, a notorious Stuttgart forger. Both he and Stern journalist Gerd Heidemann go to trial in 1985 and are each sentenced to 42 months in prison.
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