Slaughter on North Lasalle

by Robert L. Snow

  To this end, he had sent to the Prosecutor’s Office all of the information he had gained from his investigation and interviews. West had also prepared a forty-two-page report in which he explained his reasons for deeming the evidence convincing enough to show that Fred Harbison had been hired by Ted Uland to commit the murders on North LaSalle Street. This evidence included the following:

  Fred Harbison would have no reason, other than the fact he had been cheated out of his money, to write the letter if it wasn’t to be mailed until after he died. This certainly wouldn’t have been a great legacy for him. And he obviously wasn’t looking to falsely boast about it, as he never told his wife what he had done, let alone what was in the letter. Harbison took a tremendous risk writing this letter—though he had not signed his name to the letter, he had typed it, and if the letter had become known to the police before he died he would have come under strong suspicion. Clearly the police hadn’t suspected him. He had gotten away with murder. But exposure of this letter would have seriously jeopardized that. Therefore, the only logical reason for writing the letter was what it appeared: He had been cheated out of his money, and this was the only way he’d apparently felt he could get back at Ted Uland.

  The letters from Harbison and the envelopes they had been in were aged and yellow, not something that had been recently produced. Also, the ink was faded—which, even if old paper and envelopes were used, an amateur forger likely wouldn’t have been able to duplicate. Additionally, Harbison’s widow had confirmed that she had seen the sealed envelopes years before and that her husband had talked about the letters a number of times. Joyce Harbison had also confirmed to West that the envelopes her stepdaughter had given West were the same ones she herself had given to Angel Palma, and that they were the same ones she had gotten out of the lockbox and brought home. West could see no reason for Joyce Harbison to want to lie about it. She wasn’t going to profit by the exposure of her husband as a murderer. If anything it would be shameful and embarrassing.

  Fred Harbison’s daughter, Angel Palma, had been the one to initiate the new direction in the North LaSalle Street case. As far as West could see, she had nothing to gain by making the letter public. Joyce Harbison and others told West that father and daughter had had a very close, special relationship, and that when Palma found the letter she had been looking for remembrances of her father. She had been in the process of looking for good memories; this letter certainly wasn’t what she’d been seeking. And so, revealing publicly that her father had been a cold-blooded killer must certainly have caused her pain. To believe that she would make up something like this about a man she loved dearly just didn’t ring true. Also, Jeff Pankake and others said that Palma, after finding the letters, had had a very difficult time dealing emotionally with it. Pankake had said that the disturbance in which Palma had ended up breaking out several of his car windows had been over her trying to cope with what the letter said. Also, there was the suspicion that no one had really taken the letters from Palma’s purse while she was at the hospital, but that she had had them the whole time. She had likely simply been wrestling with the dilemma of what to do, perhaps wishing she had never said anything about them in the first place.

  Fred Harbison had known about the bloody boot print left in the house on North LaSalle Street, and wrote in the letter that he had buried his boots afterward to keep them from being identified. Joyce Harbison had also confirmed that her husband had told her many years ago about burying his boots one night in a groundhog hole.

  During the original investigation in 1971, the detectives received information that a car had been stolen from Scott Graphics just before the killings on North LaSalle Street. Scott Graphics had sold microfilm supplies to both B&B Microfilming and Records Security Corporation. This meant that Ted Uland would have been acquainted with this company. The police found the car a couple of miles south of the North LaSalle Street house the day after the murders. But more important, they found blood in the backseat. The blood was type O. All three victims on North LaSalle Street had type A blood. Fred Harbison, West discovered, had type O blood. Had that car been used as a backup transport? Had Harbison realized he would likely get bloody during the murders and didn’t want to get any of the victim’s blood in his own car, so he had planned to ride in this one until he got cleaned up? Possibly. Of course, the blood in the car wasn’t from the victims since none of them were type O, but it could very easily have been Harbison’s. The police often find that when an assailant uses a knife or some other sharp object to assault someone with, the more violent the assault and the more the victim struggles, the more likely it is that the assailant will cut himself. The North LaSalle Street murders had been particularly violent, and evidence showed that the victims had struggled against their assailant. Also, the stolen car was found south of the North LaSalle Street house, which is the direction Harbison would have been going to return home. It could all be just a coincidence, but it seems a little pat.

  A light-colored car with a 26A prefix license plate had been seen by a witness at the murder scene on the night of the crime. This prefix meant that the car came from Gibson County in southern Indiana. Fred Harbison lived in Gibson County and owned a yellow Road Runner, which would have had a 26 prefix license plate. This is also close to the area where Ted Uland lived. (It is still unclear why this information didn’t bring more of a response from the original investigative team, at least one of whom still holds to the belief that it was the sex contest that got the men killed.) A car from southern Indiana, close to where Ted Uland lived and worked, and seen at the crime scene, should have pushed the other suspects aside and put Uland up front and center.

  Witnesses also reported that the light-colored car at the murder scene had had three men sitting in it. Would Fred Harbison have brought along help? Very likely. The victims were all big men who had a reputation for liking to fight. Therefore, Harbison had to realize that there would be the possibility of a struggle. So, it is very likely that Harbison would have brought along help.

  Many of the people West talked to about Fred Harbison said that he was the kind of man who could have committed the North LaSalle Street murders, and that he had bragged about committing other murders. Even Harbison’s wife hadn’t doubted that her husband could have been involved in such a crime. She confirmed that Fred had done a lot of Uland’s dirty work.

  The detectives in 1971 had found the remains of a cigar at the murder scene. None of the three victims smoked cigars, but Harbison, according to those who knew him, occasionally did. And of course, if Harbison had brought along help, any one of those men could have smoked the cigar. While DNA evidence today could make a clue like that crucial, in 1971, a cigar butt wasn’t the kind of evidence the police could use to identify anyone.

  In 1971, the detectives had noticed something unusual about the knots used to tie up the three men. They even sent the knots off to the FBI Laboratory to have them analyzed. When West spoke with Harbison’s widow, she told him that her husband had been able to tie special knots that he used in the oil well business. She said he used to like to show off knots that got tighter if someone struggled against them.

  In the letter, Harbison said that he was only supposed to kill two of the men, but that a third had shown up unexpectedly. This coincided with the theory the police in 1971 had developed. They believed that Jim Barker had arrived last and was killed simply because he showed up at the wrong time. The way the victims’ cars had been parked in front of the house had shown the detectives that Barker hadn’t come to the house with Bob Gierse and Bob Hinson, but had come from the opposite direction. The police believed that Gierse and Hinson had come home from their office on East 10th Street, Gierse first and Hinson at least several minutes later. Barker, they believed, had come sometime after this from his house on North Rural Street.

  A theory proposed often in the news media in 1971 was that the killings had been the work of a jealous husband or boyfriend, or that of an enraged father. At
least one of the original investigators still believes this. However, to do this, the killer would have had to somehow gain entry into a house that showed no signs of forced entry, and to gain control of three big men who liked to fight and who would have known what was in store for them if they allowed themselves to be tied up. It is extremely doubtful that they would have meekly submitted.

  Consequently, with this scenario there would have to have been a struggle, probably a violent one. However, with this kind of fight, the blows to the men’s heads would have been to the front, and not the rear. Also, while this scenario would have certainly involved a fight, the house showed no signs of a struggle. The police found no broken or overturned furniture.

  Another theory proposed in 1971 was that the murders had been committed by several jealous husbands or boyfriends who had teamed up to commit the murders. This doesn’t ring true because it’s hard to believe that two or more amateurs would agree to commit such a brutal crime, and then never talk about it. One of them would have told a future girlfriend or wife. Also, it’s hard to believe that two or more amateurs could truly have agreed to commit such a grisly crime. And again, the lack of any signs of struggle causes problems for this theory, too.

  As for the idea of a jealous husband or boyfriend enlisting the help of a professional killer, this stretches credibility considerably. How many people would know where to find a professional killer? The people who try usually end up talking to a police informant or an undercover officer. Also, if a jealous husband or boyfriend had found a professional killer, it’s very likely that this killer would have eventually been caught for another crime. Murders like the North LaSalle Street killings would have been one of the first things this professional killer would want to talk to the police about and use as a bargaining tool.

  The more likely scenario is that the murderer hid in the house, sneaked up behind the victims as they came home, and then hit them in the head with a metal object, like a tire iron, knocking them unconscious. This would explain the severe lacerations to the rear and side of each man’s head (Barker’s so severe that it fractured his skull). This would also explain how the men ended up being bound and gagged without any signs of a struggle in the house. The fact that the men had shown some indication of attempting to struggle after being bound means that they likely came to, knew what was going to happen to them, and fought for their lives. And how did the killer get into the house in order to hide when there were no signs of forced entry? Ted Uland had a key.

  Why were the men killed so brutally? Very likely Uland wanted the crime to look like the work of a jealous husband or boyfriend. He likely wanted it to look like the work of someone enraged because another man had seduced his wife or girlfriend. The way the men were killed certainly didn’t look like an insurance killing. Supporting this idea, witnesses had said that Harbison had bragged of killing a man and then cutting off his penis in order to make the murder look like the work of a jealous husband. If this was Uland’s plan, it worked. Many people in 1971, including some of those in the news media, believed that, because of the brutality of the crime, it could only have been committed by someone enraged by the men. And the sex contest certainly lent support to this idea.

  Many of the people West talked to didn’t have a very high opinion of Ted Uland. Almost universally, people who knew him said that Uland was not a model citizen. A number came right out and said that he was a criminal. Even Bob Gierse and Bob Hinson had expressed a certain fear of Uland after their meeting with him in Bloomington, Indiana, because they knew he would eventually find out how they were ripping him off. The two men told Ilene Combest that Uland was capable of anything if it involved money.

  Ted Uland had very conveniently telephoned the men from southern Indiana the night of the murders. This gave him an alibi that could be verified by the phone company. He also made certain to be seen in southern Indiana that night. Again, like the brutality of the crime, this seemed to push the investigation away from Uland and toward other suspects who didn’t have such a good alibi. When asked about Uland calling on the night of the murders, West said, “I can see him doing that. He just distanced himself from the crime.”

  According to the Indianapolis Star, at a court hearing in May of 1996, retired lieutenant Jim Strode said that Ted Uland had been a major suspect in 1971, even though the investigation eventually dropped him as a suspect.

  Insurance agent Edward Dean Watson told West that his old friend Uland hadn’t seemed very upset at all about his former employees being murdered, but had hounded him for months about getting paid off for their life insurance policies, as he’d apparently needed the money desperately. The insurance policies had been within their grace period but soon would have become worthless. Uland had had to do something quickly or the $150,000 would have been gone.

  This is quite a different picture from the Ted Uland who told the staff in the Prosecutor’s Office how close he had been to Gierse and Hinson, how much they’d respected one another, and how he’d hoped the policies wouldn’t be paid off because it would make him look bad.

  Uland managed to avoid taking a lie detector test, even though he had agreed to several dates. He and his lawyer had placed so many conditions on the test that the police finally gave up. (While this in itself doesn’t prove guilt, it is another element that adds to it.)

  In any murder case, the investigators must decide: Who had the best motive for the murder? In the North LaSalle Street case, Ted Uland had an excellent motive for wanting at least two of the men dead. Actually, of all the people investigated in the case as suspects and persons of interest, Uland had the best motive. His business was going broke and he faced multiple tax liens and lawsuits. He needed cash badly. In addition, Gierse and Hinson had stolen some of his best customers, had stolen microfilm equipment from him, and had also reportedly stolen approximately $10,000 in cash from him. He had a very good reason to want to kill these men. Not only could he get revenge for the wrongs they had done him, but he could also recoup all of his losses and much more.

  “There’s so many things that happened with this case,” West said. “But if you look right at the source at the beginning, there was Uland. And the fact that he refused to take a lie detector test tells me that there was more to it and that he was hiding something. Until you could honestly clear him out of the case there wasn’t anyone else to look at as far as I’m concerned.”

  Detective West felt that everything Fred Harbison had said in his letter fit with what the police knew about the case. While there had been many theories about who the killer or killers had been on North LaSalle Street—from outraged boyfriends and husbands to Jimmy Hoffa and President Nixon—the scenario told by Harbison was the most logical. But most importantly, it fit all the facts of the case. With this scenario there were no unanswered questions, no bits of evidence that didn’t fit.

  On May 5, 2003, West received a response to his request for case clearance from Deputy Prosecutor John Commons, a man who had been involved with the North LaSalle Street case for many years. In this message Commons said, “It has long been my personal opinion that most likely Ted Uland along with unknown accomplices committed these murders… It is my personal recommendation, based on my years of experience and intimate knowledge of the history of this case, that it be given an exceptional clearance and closed.”

  The North LaSalle Street murders could finally be put to rest.

  EPILOGUE

  I was a police officer in the Indianapolis Police Department for thirty-eight years, retiring in February 2007 with the rank of captain. I worked for several years as Joe McAtee’s administrative assistant and helped write some campaign speeches during his successful run for sheriff in 1985. Later, I served as commander of the Homicide Branch during the time of Detective Sergeant West’s investigation of the North LaSalle Street murders.

  The North LaSalle Street murders deeply affected many people. Friends and lovers of the three murdered men felt the loss for many years. They could
n’t understand the brutality and apparent senselessness of it. But in addition to friends and lovers, the case also deeply affected the detectives who investigated it.

  The victims of homicide, unlike the victims of almost all other crimes, cannot speak for themselves. And so, it is up to the homicide detectives to be their voice and to demand justice on their behalves. When this doesn’t happen it disturbs the detectives greatly. All of the detectives who investigated the case in 1971 were deeply bothered that the case went unsolved for so long. But even though they were personally unable to solve it, they all moved on to have distinguished careers at the Indianapolis Police Department before continuing with other pursuits.

  Joe McAtee, following the North LaSalle Street murders, was promoted to captain and then to the position of deputy chief of operations, in which he was in charge of all of the department’s uniformed personnel. Following this, in January 1981, the mayor of Indianapolis appointed Joe to the job of chief of police. In 1985, he ran for election to become the sheriff of Marion County. He easily won and served as sheriff for eight years, being barred by state law from running for a third term. Today, Joe is still at the Marion County Sheriff’s Office. He is a colonel and in charge of the Metropolitan Emergency Communications Agency.

  After the North LaSalle Street murders, Mike Popcheff continued to work for some time as a homicide detective sergeant. Then, after Mike received a promotion to the rank of lieutenant, the police department assigned him to supervise a uniformed district on the south side of the city. Mike retired in February 1999 and presently works providing corporate security.