This is Part 2 of 2 in the series. To read Part 1, click here.

In April 1959, nearly two years after Officer Phillips and Curtis were murdered, a Manhattan Beach resident named Doug Tuley found a revolver without its cylinder. He set it on a shelf and forgot about it. In 1960, while roto tilling his backyard, Tuley found the pistol’s cylinder. He called police to report finding a chrome-plated .22 caliber revolver near the site where the officers died.

Authorities ran a ballistics test on the gun and determined it was the murder weapon. Detectives traced the serial number to a Sears store in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Three years earlier, someone with the initials G.D. Wilson had bought the pistol for $30. The clerk described the buyer as a large man with slick black hair and a southern accent. The police checked out every George Wilson they could find. They realized the name was an alias.

The case remained cold for 42 years.

Although much time had passed, no one had forgotten the dead officers. Fellow police officers and the families of the murdered men demanded justice.

In 2002, police received a call about the murdered officers. A woman claimed her uncle had bragged about killing two police officers many years ago. Police ran the uncle’s fingerprints, but they didn’t match the fingerprints on record. It was another dead end. With the case back on the cold case detectives’ radar, they ran the killer’s fingerprints through the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS).

IAFIS identified a match.

It had been over 40 years since Officers Phillips and Curtis were murdered. Lt. Craig Cleary, head of El Segundo’s detective unit, finally had the killer’s name. Cleary and his colleagues expected to find a ruthless criminal as the owner of the prints. They were wrong. The prints belonged to Gerald Mason—a successful businessman, father and grandfather living in Columbia, South Carolina.

His prints were on file from a 1956 robbery. The delay was that IAFIS became available in 1999 and it would take many years before someone uploaded Mason’s prints to the system. Police didn’t arrest Mason immediately. They couldn’t go to court with just a fingerprint. They needed to build their case. Since Mason was a law-abiding citizen, the police needed a strong case before arresting Mason. Detectives also needed witnesses who could place Mason at the crime scene.

So who was Gerald Mason?

Gerald Fiten Mason was born on January 31, 1934 in Columbia, South Carolina. He joined the Army in the 50s and was honorably discharged. In April 1956, authorities sentenced Mason to prison for three years for home breaking and larceny. The sentence was suspended to a year. Mason only served about 8 months.

He then hitchhiked to California. Along the way he used an alias to buy a gun in Shreveport, Louisiana. After committing rape and murdering two police officers, he returned to South Carolina and became a law-abiding citizen. In September 1960, Mason married his wife, Betty. The union produced two daughters.

Mason owned and operated several gas stations before retiring. People who knew him considered him a great person. He lived an excellent life that most of us would envy.

But it was now time for Mason’s victims to receive justice.

Here is how Mason’s downfall unfolded:

In 1956, when Mason was arrested in Columbia, South Carolina, he had lived in a YMCA. Authorities thought it might be possible he lived in a YMCA near the Shreveport Sears store where he bought the murder weapon.

Investigators got lucky. There was a YMCA across the street from a Sears store in Shreveport. The YMCA kept meticulous records of previous residents. Investigators learned that someone named George D. Wilson once lived at the Shreveport YMCA.

Authorities now had signatures of the alias George D. Wilson from the YMCA and Shreveport Sears store. A handwriting expert compared the signatures to one on a business document signed by Mason. All three signatures matched.

Investigators also located three witnesses who identified Mason from a 1956 photograph as the man they saw on the night of the murders. The witnesses were El Segundo Officers Charles Porter and James Gilbert, who had stopped to assist Curtis and Phillips. There was also a news reporter who saw Mason in the area on the night of the murder.

Investigators were ready to charge Gerald Mason. On January 29, 2003, Deputy District Attorney Darren Levine and a host of police officers rang Gerald Mason’s doorbell. Mason, 69 years old, looked like a deer in headlights. He thought he had committed the perfect crime. Authorities took him to jail in Columbia, South Carolina and questioned him about the alleged murders he had committed. They also examined his body.

Investigators located a scar on his right shoulder blade where Phillips struck him with a bullet. This confirmed what the police already knew decades ago.

In March 2003, Mason returned to Los Angeles where he plead guilty to two counts of first degree murder. Mason didn’t want to go to trial because he wanted to spare his family from hearing about the grisly details surrounding his past. After his guilty plea, Mason received two life sentences. Mason requested that he serve his sentence in South Carolina so he could be near his family. Authorities approved his request.

In 2009, a parole board denied parole for Mason. He would have to wait until 2024 for his next parole opportunity. He didn’t live long enough for a second chance at parole. Mason died in prison on January 22, 2017 just a few days before his 83rd birthday.

Sometimes life doesn’t seem fair. Mason lived a long and successful life while Officers Milton and Phillips died without getting to experience life. Mason should have never experienced success or had a loving family.

Marc is a longtime resident of Clermont County and an avid reader. Contact him through his website at www.themarcabe.com or through Facebook: www.Facebook.com/themarcabe or his Twitter account @themarcabe.