Slaughter on North Lasalle Read Free Page A

this. Nothing in his life thus far had prepared him for this kind of situation. He only wanted to get away, to escape from the horror he had stumbled into, and so finally he turned and simply ran. But when he reached the front door, Karnes stopped. He knew he needed to call the police. They would know what to do. With numb, fumbling fingers, he turned around and picked up the house telephone, calling the Indianapolis Police Department.
    Yet, when Karnes, in a frightened, stammering voice, told the police dispatcher what he had found in the house on North LaSalle Street, the dispatcher initially didn’t believe him. Even though in 1971 Indianapolis had a population of nearly three quarters of a million people, it didn’t have crime like this. Nothing so horrible and brutal had ever happened there. Indianapolis had hadplenty of murders over the years, but nothing as gruesome as this. Crime like that only happened in other cities. Karnes, the dispatcher thought, was probably just a crank caller. For a moment, the dispatcher considered simply disregarding his call. However, realizing what would happen if he was wrong, and thinking better of it, the dispatcher decided to be safe. He contacted Indianapolis police officer Michael Williams, who patrolled the area around North LaSalle Street, and told him to Signal Three (call the dispatcher by telephone). When Officer Williams did, the dispatcher told him what the caller had claimed. Even though the dispatcher said it was likely just a crank call, he asked Officer Williams to drive by and check out the situation.
    A few minutes later, Officer Williams pulled his blue and white police car up to 1318 North LaSalle Street. He saw Karnes standing on the porch. Karnes was waving frantically and shouting, “In here! In here!” Officer Williams began to suspect that perhaps the dispatcher was wrong, that maybe something bad had happened after all.
    Less than a minute later, Officer Williams raced out of the house and back to his patrol car. Gasping for breath, Williams shouted into his radio microphone, “Send me Car Eighty-three! Send me Identification! Send me a coroner! Send me a superior officer! We’ve got a triple murder!”
    Officer Larry Summers was nearby and would answer the call. Because it was his assigned beat, he would make the original Teletype report on the triple murder, which would be designated 786420-D.
    As is common with incidents of a particularly gruesome or spectacular nature, the police began to arrive in droves, crowding the street with their patrol cars. Nothing like this had ever happened in Indianapolis before, and they all wanted to see it. Firemen at a nearby firehouse, hearing the call and thinking that perhaps the officer could be wrong and that someone who needed medical help might still be alive inside the house, rushed over in their fire engine.
    News reporters also picked up the call and hurried to the scene, cameras and notebooks in hand. Following them were crowds of curious people who began collecting in front of the house, having heard about the incident over their police scanners or on the local radio and television news. Others came, too: individuals who knew or had worked with the three men, such as their secretary, Louise Cole, and Diane Horton, who was dating Gierse at the time. As might be expected from all of this, a circuslike atmosphere soon enveloped the neighborhood.
    Deputy Chief of Investigations Ralph Lumpkin, who also came to the scene, couldn’t believe what he saw when he looked around inside the house. He immediately called and ordered police department technicians to bring out the video equipment to record the murder scene. Video recording was brand-new technology in 1971, and this incident became the first murder scene ever videotaped by the Indianapolis Police Department.
    Taking charge of the crime scene, Chief Lumpkin quickly assigned Detective Lieutenant Joseph McAtee to head up the homicide team that would investigate