Tuesday, February 24, 1964. It was chilly in Los Angeles, with storm clouds hovering. The early morning silence was shattered by the collision of a milk truck and a Wells Fargo armored car carrying a multimillion-dollar cargo of U.S. currency and priceless emeralds. The quiet corner of 84th and Budlong streets became the scene of a holocaust, and within minutes four armed guards and two members of a daring robbery gang were dead-the latter obviously betrayed and shot by a fellow gang member-and the robbery-murder case has remained unsolved for four and a half years now.
“Not exactly,” Sergeant Robert S. “Scotty” Bennett stated at Piper’s Coffee Shop. “It’s been four years, five months and two days.”
One does not quibble with Sergeant Bennett on anything pertaining to the case he has worked on so hard and for so long. He has been the lead investigator since that bloody morning, and his determination to crack the case has become legend within the Los Angeles Police Department. The man, all six-foot-five of him, is a legend himself. He has killed 18 armed robbers in the line of duty and commemorates the LAPD record with small 18’s embroidered in the Scottish-plaid bow ties he always wears. When asked about those shootings, he replied, “When you let that buckshot go, there’s no taking it back.”
It’s a funny line with a harrowing truth behind it: detectives working the LAPD’s Headquarters Robbery Squad go up against armed-and-dangerous criminals routinely, and they are a determined breed of man proud to be wearing “211” tie bars, the number noting the California Penal Code designation for armed robbery. “The Heist,” as it’s known around the Robbery Division squadroom, is a near-constant topic of speculation, and Scotty Bennett addresses it with great relish. “It was planned down to a ‘T,’ ” he said. “The fake milk-truck collision was very forceful and potentially fatal, which obviously convinced the guards that it was real. The robbery gang knew what the armored car would be transporting, and we’ve never determined exactly how they got that information. More importantly, we’ve never determined whether the heist gang was comprised of white men or Negroes.”
Sergeant Bennett sipped coffee and continued. “The heist was conceived and executed boldly,” he said. “And I believe that the leader of the gang decided beforehand to kill his underlings at the scene and obscure their identities, and their races, by burning their bodies past recognition. All fine and good, but obscuring racial identification requires more than burning the surface of the skin, and the man first dosed the bodies with a chemical accelerant that greatly enhanced the tissue damage of the burning. We’ve never been able to identify the chemical that he used, which is another reason why the heist has remained such a baffler.”
Some other reasons?
“Well,” Sergeant Bennett said, “we know that many of the cash stacks stolen from the armored car were wrapped with ink-exploding bands, and ink spill was found at the crime scene. Also, ink-stained bills have surfaced periodically in south Los Angeles, so I’m convinced that there was at least a partial Negro component to the gang. Also, the origin of the emeralds remains undetermined. It was a very valuable cargo, and intermediaries for the consigner and the consignee signed secrecy waivers with Wells Fargo, which has impeded the investigation.”
And the persistent rumor that the emeralds hailed from Central America or the Caribbean?
Sergeant Bennett said, “Just that, a rumor. Entirely unsubstantiated.”
And the rumor that black-militant organizations plotted and executed the heist?
Scotty Bennett laughed heartily. “Why mince words? Black militants are grandstanders who always claim credit for their deeds. The Panthers and US are informant-infiltrated, and we would have picked up leads by now. We’ve got two rowdy militant groups causing woo-woo in L.A. now, the Black Tribe Alliance and the Mau-Mau Liberation Front, but for the life of me I can’t see them executing anything more complex than a liquor-store job or a purse snatch.”
And the leader of the gang? The ruthless mastermind who killed his own men at the scene?
Scotty Bennett laughed even more heartily. “Tell him this,” he said. “When I let that buckshot go, there’s no taking it back.”
Sir,
The following states the design and goals of our
It is my firm belief that both the
1.-Both groups are rumored to be considering the sale of narcotics as a means to finance their activities, which might provide us with avenues to exploit their inherent criminality and publically underscore the point that criminal activity and subversive political activity are one and the same thing.
2.-We must find a high-caliber confidential informant who will ingratiate him or herself with one or both groups and report back with assiduously detailed briefs on their political activities. I believe that a female informant would be the most effective. A woman schooled in left-wing-revolutionary jargon would have a greater chance of eliciting confidences and inspiring indiscreet conversation and would most likely be better able to maneuver between the two (male-dominated) groups without creating rancor. Toward the end of recruitment, I have confidential Bureau informant #4361 assisting me.
3.-The linchpin of the incursion should be the placement of a male Negro infiltrator, mandated to uncover and report the criminal activities of the BTA and MMLF. Ideally, the infiltrator should have had police experience. Also ideally (but much more unlikely), he should possess a past history of racial animus for whites. Toward that possibility, I have requested a wide array of police agency personnel files and am currently seeking to secure a viewing of the hate-mail subscription lists of the late Wayne Tedrow Sr. and Bureau confidential informant Dr. Fred Hiltz. Wayne Tedrow Jr. has refused to grant me access to his father’s lists, but I will persist with him.
4.-Pending your consent, I would move to Los Angeles and establish a full-time temporary residence there, along with a cosmetically obscured front office for
In conclusion:
I strongly believe that the
Respectfully,
SA Dwight C. Holly
SA Holly,
Per your preceding memo (Confidential 1-A memorandum #8518) requesting information on rumors pertaining to the 6/9/68 death of
A.-Rumors that
B.-One source would seem to be an LVPD officer who allegedly saw
C.-A coroner’s assistant told our informant, “It wasn’t any heart attack, not with his head caved in like that.”
D.-Eyewitness neighbors of
Will forward all future data on this matter per Conf 1-A guidelines.
Marvin J. D. Waldrin, SAC, Las Vegas.
SA Holly,
Per Conf. 1-A memo #8506: rumors of the “FBI bugging” amp; “FBI-mandated hit” on Rev. M. L. King are growing in both virulence and frequency, according to informally placed sources frequenting the Grapevine Tavern.
Respectfully,
Wilton J. Laird, SAC, St. Louis.
SA Holly,
Per #8518 amp; my 7/28/68 response, an addendum:
A-Sources outside LVPD amp; CCCO are now reporting “rife” amp; “widespread” rumors of homicide per the death of WAYNE TEDROW SR.
B-Confidential Bureau informants at the Las Vegas Sun report that the newspaper may be considering an inquiry, chiefly because of the “checkered past” of
Will forward all future data per Conf. 1-A guidelines.
Marvin D. Waldrin, SAC, Las Vegas.
JEH: Good morning, Dwight.
DH: Good morning, Sir.
JEH: Before you ask, the answer is yes. Expedite
DH: Thank you, Sir.
JEH: The title possesses a sublime jungle quality. As in “That brother John Edgar Hoover, he baaad.”
DH: You are baaad, Sir. And I might add “inimitably so.”
JEH: You might, and you should. And, on the topic of jungle artistry, I heard a very disquieting song on the radio this morning.
DH: Sir.
JEH: It was called “The Tighten Up.” A Negro ensemble named Archie Bell and the Drells performed it. The song carried the air of insurrection and sex. I’m sure that white liberals will find it authentic. I told the Los Angeles SAC to open a file on Mr. Bell and to determine the identity of his Drells.
DH: Yes, Sir.
JEH: Enough bonhomie. Dwight, I am very disturbed by the Wayne Senior and Grapevine Tavern chatter. I’ve been reading the applicable communiquйs, and I take this confluence of loose talk as both a personal insult and an affront to the Bureau. Wayne Senior was an FBI asset and James Earl Ray killed Martin Lucifer King without help from you, me, this agency, Wayne Senior, Wayne Junior, Fred Otash, the redneck sharpshooter Bob Relyea, or any other outside source. Do you understand me, Dwight?
DH: Yes, Sir. I do.
JEH: Make the rumors stop, Dwight.
DH: Yes, Sir.
JEH: Good day, Dwight.
DH: Good day, Sir.