This is Part One in the series. To read Part Two, click here.
Most of us realize that one of the most dangerous professions in the world is law enforcement. No one becomes a police officer without knowing that death is always a permanent passenger. While most police officers return home to their families, others will end their shifts in a morgue.
On July 21, 1957, it was a humid night in Hawthorne, California, a city in the southwestern part of Los Angeles. Two teenage couples had parked their 1949 Ford in a dark oil field often used as a popular lover’s lane by young couples.
In the background, the moonlight placed a peaceful glow onto the Pacific Ocean. Before anyone had a real opportunity for any passion, the teens saw a shadowy man approaching their car. The stranger shoved a pistol in the driver’s face, robbed them and then raped one of the girls. He bound their eyes and mouths shut with tape, made them walk into the woods and then forced them to lie on the ground. The teenagers expected an execution. Instead, the man stole their car and fled.
The unknown man drove the stolen car into El Segundo, which is about five miles from Hawthorne. He needed to flee the crime scene and ditch the stolen car before the owner reported it stolen. Instead of avoiding any unwanted attention, he ran a red light at the intersection of Sepulveda and Rosecrans. Unknown to him, two police officers saw him.
Officers Richard Phillips, 28 and a 25-year-old rookie officer named Milton Curtis pulled the man over. They ordered him out of the car. After Phillips began writing a ticket, fellow officers James Gilbert and Charlie Porter drove by to see if Phillips and Curtis needed help.
The officers drove away after Phillips waved them on. Moments later, Porter and Gilbert received a call on their radio at 1:28 a.m. Officer Phillips had radioed for help. Someone had shot him and Curtis. They needed an ambulance. Officers Gilbert and Porter sped back to help their comrades. Unfortunately, Officers Phillips and Curtis were beyond help.
Gilbert and Porter stepped out of their car to witness a grisly scene that would haunt them forever. Richard Phillips was lying dead on the ground and Milton Curtis was in his patrol car. He was also deceased. Each man had been shot three times.
Other law enforcement officers arrived at the intersection and launched a massive manhunt for the killer. When police searched the stolen car, they found two bullet holes in the back window and one in the trunk. Police recovered two bullets. Investigators wondered if the third bullet had struck the killer. Before dying, Officer Phillips shot out the back window of the Ford. It would take police over 40 years to find out for sure what happened to that third bullet.
“To have them killed like that, right in cold blood,” said Officer Gilbert. “It was pretty hard to take.”
Back at the oil field, a night watchman called the police to help the four traumatized teenagers. After listening to the teens tell them about the rape and robbery, authorities realized the same man who assaulted the teens had also killed officers Phillips and Curtis.
The teens said the suspect didn’t sound like a local. He spoke with a southern drawl and didn’t seem too intelligent. They described the killer as being around 6 feet tall and weighing 200 pounds. He had dark hair and wore it similar to singer Elvis Presley. The description didn’t help. Unlike today’s technology, the police in the 1950s didn’t have much in crime fighting techniques.
The deaths of the two El Segundo officers created terror in the community. If a man could murder two police officers, what else would he do? Fellow officers then had the heartbreaking task of visiting the families of Officers Phillips and Curtis to tell them the tragic news about the homicides. Both officers had wives and small children.
The killer had left his fingerprints, but it would take four decades before justice would prevail. The people who would invent the technology to solve this case were either children or not even born yet. Eventually, this cold case would heat up and authorities would soon be on the trail of a dangerous killer.
Marc is a longtime resident of Clermont County and avid reader. He can be contacted through his website at www.themarcabe.com, through Facebook: www.facebook.com/themarcabe or his Twitter account @themarcabe. And be sure to listen to his podcast at www.spreaker.com/show/the-marcabe.