Slaughter on North Lasalle

by Robert L. Snow

  “She wasn’t stunned,” West recalled after telling Joyce Harbison what he was investigating. “Actually, she thought he was capable of doing such a thing, based on what he had done for Uland over the years. She had no knowledge that he did it, but she made the statement that she wouldn’t be surprised if he was involved in it.”

  As they talked, Joyce told West that her husband had worked a number of years for Ted Uland at his oil drilling company. She didn’t have a very high opinion of Uland. She said that he was sneaky and always trying to rip someone off. In addition, she said that Uland consistently seemed to be in debt, and that he was constantly being sued by someone. The man couldn’t be trusted, she felt.

  When asked about any weapons her husband might have had or carried, Joyce told West that Fred had always carried knives, and that he liked to keep them razor-sharp. He would sit in front of the television and sharpen them. She also said that he carried a pistol, but that he had a permit to do so. Along with this, she added something very important: She said that her husband always kept a heavy metal pry bar in all of the vehicles he drove. West made a particular note of this, since all three of the men on North LaSalle Street had been struck in the head multiple times with a long metal object.

  Moving on in the interview, West needed to know about the letters. He needed to be as certain as possible that the letters he had been given by Palma had really been written by Fred Harbison.

  “I asked her [Joyce Harbison] about [the contents] and she said the letters were never opened,” said West. “She didn’t know what was in them.”

  Joyce told West that her husband had claimed that Uland owed him a lot of money for a poker debt. She said her husband had instructed her that if by the time he died he hadn’t been paid she was to send the letters off. Joyce told West that Fred had talked about the letters a number of times over the years, and that she had seen the sealed envelopes several times before her husband died. Harbison had finally put them in his lockbox at the bank, however, and she forgot about them. When she emptied his lockbox after he died, she found the letters and brought them home with the rest of the contents. However, she soon forgot about them again. After all, her husband had died and so had Uland. It was just a poker debt, so to her the letters seemed valueless and simply sat in the house for several years with the rest of her husband’s property.

  “Joyce said that the letters had been in the house for a long period of time,” West said. “After Angel Palma’s father died, Angel asked for any personal items of her father’s that her stepmother had. Joyce turned over one letter to Angel, and then later turned over a second that had been with his insurance policy.”

  When asked about the cars her husband had owned, Joyce confirmed that Fred had owned a yellow Road Runner. She also said that he’d had an extensive knowledge of knots and that he’d had to tie a lot of knots in his job in the oil fields. She commented that he liked to show off the kind of knots that got tighter if a person struggled against them. West made another special note of this. In their original investigation in 1971, the detectives had sent off to the FBI Laboratory in Washington, D.C., some knots in the cord used to tie up the victims. The detectives had asked for any information the technicians at the laboratory might have about the knots, but the FBI hadn’t been able to help.

  Joyce also commented that her husband had been big and strong, and that he’d liked to fight and was involved in a lot of brawls. She added that he always wore boots. West also paid extra attention to this, since in the homicide case file he had seen the photograph of a boot print that had been made in the blood. He knew the detectives had found the print in the hallway of the house on North LaSalle Street and that, in the letter, Harbison had specifically said that he had buried his boots that night after the murders.

  She then told West that for a while her husband had been on disability, but that he had continued to work for Uland, and had been paid under the table. When West asked her about any illegal activities her husband might have done for Ted Uland, she said that she knew he had done some illegal things for him, but when pressed for specifics, Joyce told him that she would rather not comment. West then asked about any typewriters Joyce and her husband might have had. She said there were four, and she gave West permission to take them all with him. She also gave him two revolvers that had belonged to her husband.

  West additionally obtained a bill of sale from Joyce. It was for a Mayhew Model 1000 Drilling Rig, mounted on the back of a GMC truck. Uland had sold it to Harbison for $10, practically for free. West wondered if it could have been part of a payoff for illegal activities. Also, Joyce Harbison told West that Uland had paid her husband a salary of $200 per week, whether he worked or not, and in addition had always supplied him with a truck. This would have been a nice sum in the 1960s and ’70s. It certainly seemed to West that Uland and Harbison had had a relationship in which Uland had wanted to keep Harbison as happy as he could.

  After finishing his interview with Joyce Harbison, West drove over and talked with Jeff Pankake again. He wanted, if possible, to find the typewriter the letter from Fred Harbison had been written on. If he could find it in a place where Harbison lived or visited regularly, then this would add tremendously to the letter’s authenticity. Pankake said he didn’t think that Palma’s mother had any typewriters in her house, but that she had had one in the office of her ceramics business. However, he added, a fire at the business had melted it. Pankake then gave West the names of some other people who had also known Fred Harbison and who might be able to give him some more information.

  When West returned to Indianapolis, he sent the four typewriters from the Harbison house to the crime lab, requesting that they be checked against the typeface on the letter. He also sent along the two revolvers Joyce Harbison had said belonged to her husband. West asked the crime lab to check the revolvers for any traces of blood. Again, a long shot like the knives, since it had been thirty years since the murders, but still, West knew he had to try. (But the revolvers, like the knives earlier, ultimately tested negative for blood.)

  Later, the crime lab would report that although one of the four typewriters definitely hadn’t been used to type the letter, they were unable to test the other three because they were very old and the technicians couldn’t find any ribbon for them. While not the ironclad proof West had wanted, this at least still fit the story that Harbison had typed the letter a long time ago. West eventually returned the typewriters and revolvers to Joyce.

  Detective Sergeant Roy West, as a part of his investigation, also had the National White Collar Crime Center in Richmond, Virginia, conduct research on Ted Uland. The Center found that during his life Uland had constantly had tax liens filed against him, and that he was also regularly sued. The result of this research showed that Ted Uland consistently had money problems, and that in 1971 he needed that $150,000 very badly. The motive for murder was certainly there. And while $150,000 is a large sum today, in 1971 it would have been huge.

  Following this, the investigation next took West to Bloomington, Indiana, about fifty miles southwest of Indianapolis, where he had made an appointment to talk with Edward Dean Watson, the insurance agent who had written the $150,000 key man life insurance policies on Bob Gierse and Bob Hinson thirty years earlier. West said in his report that Watson had at first been reluctant to talk with him, telling West that he was concerned about a lawsuit if Uland’s family was forced to return the insurance money. However, after being assured by West that he had no interest in the legitimacy of the insurance payout, but rather was only concerned about a criminal investigation, Watson agreed to talk with him.

  Ed Watson told West that he and Ted Uland had been very close—they had been fraternity brothers at Indiana University, Uland had been best man at Watson’s wedding, and for a time Uland had even dated Watson’s sister. Naturally, this made West cautious. He knew that anything Watson said about Uland would be couched in this context of good friends. Watson said that after he went to work for
New York Life Insurance Company he wrote a number of policies for Uland and his family. He stated that he had been the one who had recommended to Uland that he get the key man policies on Gierse and Hinson.

  He remembered Uland telling him about his new business venture into microfilming and microfilm storage, and that he seemed very excited about it, and very enthusiastic about the future of the business. Uland saw it growing tremendously in the coming decade. It was, he said, the answer to the records storage problem for businesses. Watson also told West that he had once visited Records Security Corporation in Indianapolis while writing the key man policies, and that he wasn’t impressed at all with the business. He said that everyone seemed to be just sitting around. For all of the promise Uland had seen in the business, Watson didn’t think his employees shared the same vision.

  Of Uland’s financial condition, Watson said that one day he would have money and the next day he would be broke. He never put any money aside for the future. Watson told West that when he read about the murders in the newspaper, he recognized the men as the two he had written the key man life insurance policies on, and so he called the home office of New York Life to see if the policies were still in effect. He found that they were in their grace period. Watson said he then called Uland and told him about what he had read in the paper and also that he had checked and found that the policies were still in effect. Watson had expected some sort of reaction, but he said that Uland didn’t seem very upset at all about the murders, even though he also claimed to Watson that this was the first he had heard of the incident.

  Watson then told West about how his company had delayed paying the claim because the police in Indianapolis had said that Uland was a suspect in the murders. They couldn’t pay off until the police no longer listed him as a suspect. Uland, though, Watson went on, while never seeming very upset about his former employees having been murdered, had called him over and over for months checking on the insurance claim, asking when it would be paid. But Watson said he couldn’t do anything as long as the police still considered Uland a suspect. He said he got the impression that Uland was under serious financial pressure at the time and needed the money very badly.

  West realized that this was a very different Uland from the one who had told the meeting in the Prosecutor’s Office that Gierse and Hinson had been like family to him, and who’d said that he hoped the insurance wouldn’t pay off because it would make him look bad.

  Watson told West that he and Uland had discussed the case a number of times, with Uland proposing several theories about what had happened. Uland told Watson that Gierse and Hinson had been involved in buying stolen goods from a burglary ring, and that might have been what got them killed. Also, Uland offered the theory that the men might have messed around with the wrong man’s girlfriend or wife. That could certainly have gotten them killed.

  Watson then said that Uland told him the police in Indianapolis had wanted him to take a lie detector test, but since the police wanted to do it themselves and his lawyer had insisted it be conducted by an independent operator, as far as Watson knew Uland had never ended up taking the test. Watson also told West that eventually he received a telephone call from Lieutenant Joe McAtee, telling him that Uland was no longer a suspect in the murders. Once the police department had dropped Uland as a suspect, Watson said, his company finally paid the claim in December of 1972, and he delivered the check personally to Uland.

  As West was wrapping up the interview, he said in his notes that Ed Watson expressed concern about how this investigation would impact the Uland family if it was discovered that Ted Uland had been involved. It certainly wouldn’t be a good legacy for Ted Uland, Watson said. West replied that he had a responsibility to the families of the victims to find out the truth about what had happened. His job was simply to investigate the case, and he couldn’t worry about how the outcome affected someone’s legacy.

  By this point, Detective Roy West felt that he now had a pretty good idea of what had happened in the North LaSalle Street murders, but he had to be absolutely certain. So on March 28, 2001, he returned to talk again with Joyce Harbison. West wanted to be positive that the letters he had in his possession were the letters she had given to Palma. He needed to be assured that these were the letters she had seen years before, the ones that her husband had given her instructions about. Joyce verified that they were. She also said again that she thought it was possible her husband might have committed the murders because of the kind of things he would do for Ted Uland back then. He had done a lot of Uland’s dirty work, she said. She also told West that her husband had talked a long time ago about burying his boots one night in a groundhog hole. She didn’t know why, and probably hadn’t wanted to. West left Joyce Harbison’s house feeling that he no longer had any doubt of Uland and Harbison’s involvement.

  “Well, there’s been so many different theories about how it happened and who was involved,” said West. “I think that logically this is the only theory that makes sense. When you look at the business angle of the crime, the whole motive lies within that aspect. I know there’s theories about the men’s game of dating all of these women and such, and theories about organized crime being involved. None of it fits. This does.”

  On the same day he spoke to Joyce Harbison, West also spoke again with Angel Palma. Palma had contacted him with information about a possible accomplice, George Smith,1 who might have assisted her father in the North LaSalle Street murders. She told West that she hadn’t said anything about it before because Smith still lived nearby and she was worried about the safety of her family. But now that she had given him the letters, she felt she had to tell him everything.

  Palma said that Smith had worked with her father and had also been friends with him. She said she suspected that he might have helped Fred Harbison on North LaSalle Street because her father would do things for Smith that he would never do for anyone else; Harbison would go out of his way to accommodate this man. Whatever Smith wanted, he got. Palma told West that she knew it was dangerous to give him this information, but she felt it was important that he know about it.

  “Angel [Palma] was fearful of saying anything because the man lived in the next town, and he knew all of her family members,” said West. “She was afraid if she said anything he would hurt her or her family because he would know where the information came from.”

  On April 8, 2001, West talked with George Smith, who confirmed that he had lived in the Jasper, Indiana, area in 1971, and that he had worked with both Fred Harbison and Ted Uland. Smith said he had worked first with Harbison digging water wells, but then Rural Water arrived in the county and pretty much put them out of business. He described Harbison as having been a big, strong man who could be very intimidating if he wanted to be. He said that Harbison could be in your face screaming at you one minute, and then patting you on the back the next. It was very unsettling, because a person never knew which way it would go. When asked about the cars Harbison had driven, the man recalled the yellow Road Runner. He added that Harbison often carried a .38 caliber revolver, and always had a knife that he kept extremely sharp.

  After Fred Harbison’s water well business went under, Smith said that he started working for Ted Uland in his oil well business, and that he was working for Uland at the time of the North LaSalle Street murders. When asked about Uland, Smith didn’t offer a very high opinion of him. He said that Uland had had a reputation for trying to skip out on paying bills and for screwing people over every chance he got. No one, he said, would take Ted Uland’s checks. He also told West that the guys he worked with at the oil well business used to tease Uland that they were all going to get big bonuses when the insurance money from Gierse and Hinson came in. Uland never responded, he said, but would just shrug it off. Smith also told West that he had always thought Uland had something to do with the North LaSalle Street murders. He said he had no proof, just his belief.

  Finally, West got to the reason he had come. He asked the man about his
own involvement in the North LaSalle Street murders. George Smith denied any knowledge of them. However, West wrote in his notes that he looked directly at Smith when he asked him about being involved in the murders, and that Smith paused and looked up to his left before answering. (For those detectives who have attended the Kinesic Interview and Interrogation School, this is a sign of deception.) The man also told West that he had been to Indianapolis before, but never with Harbison or Uland, and never to the North LaSalle Street address.

  Was George Smith involved in the North LaSalle Street murders or did he have some knowledge about them? Possibly. But there’s no real proof to connect him with the murders; just Angel Palma’s suspicion and Detective West’s belief that he was lying. However, at the end of the interview, West asked Smith if he would be willing to take a lie detector test. Smith shook his head and said no, under no circumstances would he take one. West wrote in his notes that it was likely Smith knew about how Uland never took a lie detector test and about how everything against him was ultimately dropped. Still, since the man did have a police record, West was able to obtain a copy of Smith’s fingerprints, and had them compared to the unidentified fingerprints from North LaSalle Street. The Identification Branch found no match.

  Once back in Indianapolis, Detective Roy West began to gather all of the notes he had taken, and all of the transcripts of the interviews he had conducted. It was time to put them together into a report to send to the Prosecutor’s Office.

  1 Denotes pseudonym

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Detective Sergeant Roy West sat at his desk in the Homicide Office in the early months of 2003. Although he’d had to work on many intervening murder cases in the little over two years since he had received the first call from Deputy Borchelt, he had finally finished with the North LaSalle Street case. After combining all of the evidence he had recovered and all of the interviews he had conducted, West felt that he had enough information to request that the case be exceptionally cleared.