by Susan Kelly
Price never spoke to Rothman again after that evening. He thought of telephoning when he read in the newspaper of Patricia’s murder and saw Rothman’s name mentioned in the article.
Price’s lawyer advised him not to have anything further to do with Rothman, and to dismiss the notion of getting involved in any business deal with the man.
On November 8, 1962, Patricia wrote a letter to her mother in which she requested that Hazel send her a photograph album. She had a drawerful of snapshots, clippings, and other such mementos, Patricia said, and she wanted something in which to put them. Hazel sent her the album.
After Patricia’s murder, when Mrs. Bissette made the heartbreaking journey to Boston to sort through and pack up her daughter’s effects, she found two things missing. One was a 1921 silver dollar Patricia had prized. The other was the photograph album. All that remained of Patricia’s memorabilia was a single letter and one photograph.
Also absent from Patricia’s handbag and wallet, which were otherwise intact, even to her last paycheck, were pictures of her friends. Mrs. Bissette had found this very strange. Patricia had carried such items around with her constantly.
Mrs. Bissette assumed that detectives had taken the photographs to use as evidence. But when she got in touch with the Boston police, they told her that all they’d found in the apartment were twelve letters.
Patricia could have lost—or even spent—the silver dollar herself, or given it to a friend as a special gift. Or a visitor to the apartment could have pocketed it. The absence of the photograph album was a little more difficult to explain. Would a mere thief have stolen it—but left Patricia’s $125 watch on the dresser?
The only substantial collection of photographs that ever turned up were those of Patricia and Jules Rothman that Billy MacKenzie had found not very well hidden in Rothman’s desk.
And it was odd that the police had found only twelve letters among Patricia’s possessions. She was a pack rat where personal correspondence was concerned.
Had her killer taken the album and any other letters Patricia might have kept because his face or name appeared in them?
Engineering Systems, Inc., had been in serious financial trouble prior to its takeover by Automatic Radio. The one thing all the witnesses agree on is that Patricia was deeply embroiled in the situation. “She knew all the business secrets of ESI,” said one of the principals.
Here is Billy MacKenzie’s version of the story, as given to Leo Martin:
Sheldon Kurtzer and Jules Rothman were partners and they developed some kind of talking book and Pat was the voice in the book, she was on a tape. She was the voice on the tape of Little Red Riding Hood and all those stories; they were making books for Christmas. And something went wrong, where Jules Rothman said the patent was his and that he was the one who worked on it and that it was his money and all kinds of things. And there was a third partner and whatever happened or went wrong, the third partner, his life was threatened.
“Whose life?” Martin asked. Billy couldn’t remember the man’s name; she was sure that he, his wife, and family had been subject to a frightening degree of harassment. “I know that they were putting boxes in dolls, too, to talk. Pat’s voice was the voice on all these tapes that were in the dolls and the books and things.”
“Who made that arrangement?” said Martin.
“Jules,” Billy replied.
“Was she getting paid for this?” Martin asked.
“I don’t know whether she was getting extra pay or just her salary,” Billy said. “But then the third partner left and he wouldn’t go back to work for them, so then there was just Sheldon and Jules. And then Sheldon left.”
“Jules is still at Engineering?” Martin asked.
“Yes, as far as I know.”
“And he has nothing more to do insofar as the ownership or partnership or anything to that effect, has he?” inquired Martin.
“No,” Billy said. “He’s working for them at Radio now.”
At the end of August 1964, DiNatale interviewed Hazel Bissette. What follows is his report on that session.
“On Monday, March 4, 1963, Dottie [Dottie Chapman, a onetime employee of Engineering Systems] called Mrs. Bissette. On one of the phone calls right after Pat’s death, she told Mrs. Bissette that after Pat had died, she and Jules Rothman had a terrible fight, and she did not want to tell Mrs. Bissette what the fight was about. And that she had left the company to work for another company. The other call was on March 24, 1963. Jules called Mrs. Bissette about 7:30 P.M. after Mrs. Bissette had returned from the second Boston trip. He said he wanted to talk with her and said he would like to come to Vermont in May to talk with her and see Pat’s grave. He didn’t make the trip.
“On March 27, 1963, Dottie Chapman called Mrs. Bissette again and asked if Jules had called her. Mrs. Bissette said that she seemed rather worried. She believed that while Dottie was talking to her that Jules Rothman was in the same room and that he was listening to Dottie’s phone conversation. Dottie kept asking Mrs. Bissette whether or not Pat had shown her any stocks and bonds certificates or if Pat had showed her any stocks and bonds recently while she was home, and she wanted to know if Mrs. Bissette had the bonds. While Dottie Chapman was talking to Mrs. Bissette, she asked Mrs. Bissette if she didn’t want to talk to her about Pat’s business with the company or what she knew about the company. Dottie kept asking questions about the company that Mrs. Bissette thought were very funny at the time.”
On September 24, 1964, DiNatale spoke with Ruth Darling.
DINATALE: Did Pat ever talk about the company where she worked?
RUTH: Yes, she talked about it a great deal. She was very worried about that. Financial dealings and ... She was worried about the relationship between her boss and the president, I believe.
DINATALE: And the vice president?
RUTH: And the vice president? I believe the other man was president and Jules was either vice-president or treasurer or something next in line. And when the company was finally on the verge of bankruptcy, and Automatic Radio took them over, and Jules was promoted to president of the company and the other man put under him.
DINATALE: Was there bitter feeling between these two people?
RUTH: I don’t know how bitter the feeling was. I know there were disagreements and Pat felt the president had treated Jules very unfairly in a number of cases. There was a story I was going to tell you about the president of the company. Before they could be taken over by Automatic Radio, they had to get any stockholders to sell the stock back to them, I believe. And there was one man who held out and wouldn’t and the president had planned to hire thugs, or I think had actually hired them, to intimidate this man, and finally the man agreed to sell, and nothing ever happened.
Ruth told DiNatale that Dottie Chapman and Patricia had been friendly. Other witnesses, including Kurtzer himself, confirmed this. Kurtzer said that Dottie’s attitude toward the younger woman was that of a mother hen. Chapman, like everyone else in the company, was aware of the intimacy between Patricia and Rothman.
John Melin spoke about Jules Rothman: “There was something very secretive about the boss planning to dump Jules or vice-versa. It was not just a regular boss-secretary relationship [between Patricia and Rothman]. It was more than that. There were three silent partners in the company. It was something really hush-hush. [Patricia] was really upset about it. I guess Jules was planning his own maneuver.”
Hazel Bissette told DiNatale that her daughter had written to her in the fall of 1962 “saying that she had a big problem and wanted some help.” She could have been referring to her pregnancy. But Mrs. Bissette thought that Patricia was worried about her shares in Engineering Systems.
Arthur Marson, an ex-ESI employee, told DiNatale that Patricia had attended stockholder meetings to function as a “peacemaker.” Marson also said that Rothman and Kurtzer had hired Mrs. Rothman and the two Rothman sons “to come to the factory and look busy” when company shareholders were
present.
DiNatale also spoke to John Servetnick. Servetnick was an engineer who, while working for a Cambridge firm, had invented a certain type of tape recorder. A friend introduced him to Rothman and Kurtzer, who offered Servetnick a partnership in their company, a vice presidency, and a salary of eighteen thousand dollars. He in return would purchase two thousand dollars’ worth of Engineering Systems stock per year until he owned one-third of the business. And he would also hand over to Rothman and Kurtzer his invention.
According to Servetnick, he never received one penny of his salary, just “a few dollars to pay [my] bills every now and then.” He had, however, kept his end of the bargain and bought stock. Seeing no future for himself with Rothman and Kurtzer, he quit in the summer of 1962. Then, a few months later, he found out that Automatic Radio was interested in buying out the foundering ESI.
“In October or November I got a call from Sheldon,” said Servetnick. “He wanted the stock. I had been to one or two stockholders meetings at which I was asked to return the stock. I refused to give the stock back until I got the original price back, which was one thousand dollars. I got the call about seven o’clock from Sheldon asking me to give the stock back. I refused. He said he would probably go to jail if I did not give the stock back, and if I did not give the stock back he would send a couple of guys after me and they would kill me and that he would not be connected with it. Jules was with Sheldon at the time of the threat. Jules visited my home the evening of the threat. Jules came over to the house to get the stock. I refused to give it to him. He admitted that he had heard Sheldon threaten me. He stated this in front of my wife and his own son. When I asked him if he would be a witness to this threat he denied hearing Sheldon threaten me. At the time the company had run out of funds to meet the payroll. Jules and Sheldon needed the money and decided to sell stock to the employees. They then spoke to Pat and apparently convinced her to buy some stock (about four hundred dollars or five hundred dollars, I think). She was very elated at being able to become part owner of the company and that it was the first time she had ever purchased stock in her life. She seemed very pleased.”
The “Talking Doll” or “Talking Book” (Patricia had applied to the government for a patent in Rothman’s name) incorporated the tape device invented by Servetnick. He confirmed that Pat’s voice had been used in the recording to go into the doll. DiNatale asked Servetnick if he knew what had happened to that tape.
“No, I don’t know where the tape is,” Servetnick said. “Jules and Sheldon had the right to borrow the tape. They decided to borrow the tape and I turned the tape recorder over to them. On this was the ‘announce loop’ with Pat’s voice. They erased this ‘announce loop’ and it came back with Dottie Chapman’s voice.” Servetnick added, “I recognized the voice as Dottie’s, and they admitted it was Dottie’s voice.”
Dottie, Servetnick recalled, had telephoned him once to plead with him to give back the stock so that she and the other remaining ESI employees could be paid.
Two days after Patricia was killed, Rothman called Servetnick to ask him if he could find a job for Dottie. “He [Jules] said he had been down to police headquarters trying to find the murderer. Jules said he felt terrible about it,” Servetnick recollected. “He had been down to police headquarters. He suspected Sheldon had done it. He wanted to tell the police but he remembered Sheldon had threatened my life. He asked if it was okay to tell the police. I said go ahead and he said that he already had.”
Servetnick also informed DiNatale that any Engineering Systems certificates Patricia owned had to be phony, since the stock that she bought—or thought she was buying—already belonged to Automatic Radio.
“Either Jules or Sheldon were in such poor financial condition or debt,” Servetnick commented, “that in my opinion either of them might have been driven to violence if the circumstances warranted.”
DiNatale, remembering the story Rothman had told about paying for Patricia to go to a convent to have her baby, asked, “Do you think Jules was the kind of person to give Pat the money to go away?”
“No,” said Servetnick. “I think he would rather go to Alaska. After I was threatened there was another meeting with Jules and his wife. I can’t remember where we met. I think it was in front of their house. His wife was very upset that I did not give up the stocks. She intimated at this time that one of their mothers was in a rest home and that they were in charge of the trust fund and I got the idea that they had taken money from this trust fund and could not return it.”
Ruth Darling reported to DiNatale that she considered Patricia and Rothman—whom she found distasteful—to be “awfully in love.” DiNatale asked Ruth if she thought that Mrs. Rothman had been aware of the affair between her husband and Patricia. “I don’t think she could help it,” Ruth replied. “I think Pat was quite obvious, really.”
On January 29, 1965, DiNatale and Sheldon Kurtzer had the following conversation.
KURTZER: Jules Rothman and I were not exactly close in many ways and Pat was a private secretary to Jules. She was very unconfidential, and Jules and I didn’t get along very well.
DINATALE: Do you know the reasons why? Can you tell me about the company, why you and Jules never got along very well?
KURTZER: Right now I’m on pretty good terms again. He was the key man in the company for the most part and there was a series of things that caused the falling-out ... They [Rothman and another ESI executive] tried to have me thrown out as president, and behind all of this, number one, I invented a tape recorder similar to John Servetnick’s but about forty times better. Everything I made, the models and drawings, Jules Rothman copied and signed his names to the drawings and he also applied for a patent. I made a write-up called a talking book. We were using Pat’s voice for these tapes. She did not have a good voice for this type of recording. Then I gave Pat the complete write-up and told her to keep it confidential and nobody was to see it. This was for her to type up and a copy was found on Jules Rothman’s desk.
Ruth Darling had told DiNatale that Patricia had been taken out to dinner by Kurtzer and had gone out for drinks with him a number of times. He had driven her home on many occasions. He had complained to her about being unhappily married. One night he kissed her, a gesture she did not return.
DiNatale asked Kurtzer if he had been jealous of Rothman for his sexual involvement with Patricia.
“There was a little animosity on my part,” Kurtzer said. “I didn’t know how close they were. I was too involved with financial trouble to realize an affair between Pat and Jules.”
Kurtzer talked about the business arrangement Patricia had made with ESI: “Pat was a stockholder. She had invested five hundred dollars in the company. When the company was sold her pay was brought up to date by Automatic Radio, which was two or three months’ back pay. She got all her back pay.”
Kurtzer admitted that he had argued with Servetnick over the latter’s refusal to give back his stock in ESI for twenty cents on the dollar, an exchange that Kurtzer claimed all the other shareholders had approved. He also said he had threatened Servetnick—“I told him I would ‘fix his wagon’ for him”—but that the threat had been merely a ruse, nothing to be taken seriously.
Authorities collected the stock certificates issued to Patricia and purportedly signed by her, and sent them, along with an independent sample of her signature, to Carola Blume, the graphologist consulting to the Strangler Task Force. After a careful analysis, Blume concluded that the signature on the certificates had not been forged by Jules Rothman. She did think there was a strong possibility that it had been forged by Rothman’s wife.
Just how close Patricia’s relationship with Sheldon Kurtzer really was, or how close it might have become, is anyone’s guess. She did write a letter to a very close friend in which she mentioned that if she succeeded in losing fourteen more pounds, “Shell” would buy her a dress.
Sheldon Kurtzer was given a polygraph examination. The test results appeared to clea
r him of any complicity in Patricia’s murder.
The already Rashomon-like saga of the short life and violent death of Patricia Bissette had the following additional twists:
Very shortly before her murder, she had probably engaged in some form of rough anal sex as well as regular genital intercourse.
Jules Rothman told John Servetnick that his younger son, who was reputedly gay, was dating Patricia.
The younger son frequently lent Patricia his sports car, and spent some time in her apartment on Friday, December 28, 1962. This was before his father arrived there to give Patricia the information about the convent that would care for her during her pregnancy.
Just after the murder of Sophie Clark, Rothman announced to Patricia—in the hearing of Billy MacKenzie—that she shouldn’t live alone because she might fall victim to the Strangler.
Leo Martin wrote this report on the case:
After the police interrogated Rothman, he changed his story about his being in [Patricia’s] apartment for the last time on Saturday [December 29, 1962]. He said that he did come back Sunday morning and he further states that it had been a practice on Sunday morning for him to buy two newspapers at the drug store across the street [one for Pat], but on this Sunday he went to Pat’s house and bought one newspaper, knocked at the door and receiving no answer, went home. Jules has an alibi—being with his two sons Saturday night to purchase a volt regulator in [Boston]. Sunday his wife and children alibi for him that he had gone out in the morning to purchase a newspaper and come directly back and watched television late that night. In conclusion and in my opinion, Jules was the only one that had been keeping steady company with the deceased, lieing [sic] about her personal habits by saying she was promiscuous because of her good nature. He changed his mind about not being at the apartment on Sunday and then stated he was. His family’s alibis for Sunday were disproved due to Jules’ own statements.
