The Killer Book of Cold Cases Read Free Page A

prints enough to “make” their case. They needed more, said David Lambkin. “I wanted to make sure, forty-six years later, that we had a rock-solid case before arresting someone who is a successful businessman and a pillar of his community.” Lambkin wanted a case that definitely “would go to trial and end with conviction.”
    To do this, the investigators found every witness they could, though a number of the people involved—including the sixteen-year-old driver of the stolen Ford—had passed away.
    Cops learned that when he was arrested in Columbia, South Carolina, Mason had been living in a YMCA. They wondered if he also might have been living in one in Shreveport when he purchased the gun. Investigators found a YMCA right across the street from the Sears store.
    Almost unbelievably, the YMCA had preserved all of its old registries. Police were able to find the signature of “George D. Wilson.” A handwriting expert was called in to compare the three signatures they had: the one on the form Mason signed when he was buying the gun, the one on the YMCA registration, and one they had secretly obtained on a business document. The signatures matched, all three written with neat, widespread letters that also had much the same shape.
    There were questions, of course, such as why Mason had traveled from South Carolina to California. But a background check revealed that he had had some legal matters to handle for his mother about the time he would have been there.
The Arrest
    On January 29, 2003, close to fifty years after Mason supposedly gunned down two cops, an assemblage of cops showed up at his door, along with the head of the task force, Deputy District Attorney Darren Levine, and rang the bell.
    The bald-headed, 69-year-old man who opened the door was Mason, and he was stunned. He looked, Lieutenant Cleary said, “like a deer in the headlights.”
    One of the investigators told him they were there to question him about the murder of two El Segundo police officers, and the blood drained from his face.
    He was escorted to the local Columbia jail where he was questioned and his body examined. As a result, a decades-old mystery was solved.
    As he was dying, one of the cops, Philips, fired three shots at the fleeing car. The back window was shattered and two slugs were recovered, but investigators found no trace of the third slug or where it had impacted, if it had.
    When cops examined Mason, they found a round scar just below his right shoulder blade, showing that he had been hit there. The mystery of the missing bullet was solved.

    On the left is a composite sketch of Gerald Mason, derived from a description given by the kids he kidnapped. On the right is Mason’s mug shot from his 2003 arrest.
    Mason waived extradition, and in March 2003, he was flown to Los Angeles, where he pled guilty to two counts of first-degree murder. He could have been charged with the robbery of the teenagers and the rape of one as well, but the victims didn’t want to endure a trial.
    Mason did, however, try to explain his actions, stating that he had been drunk when he committed the crimes. He said, “I’m still trying to just figure out how I got [to where they were]. I do recall being in Vegas. I feel like I have a memory of a liquor bottle in that field somewhere.”
    And why did he shoot the cops?
    It wasn’t premeditated. He said that one of the cops started to pressure him, and “I was scared. I was really fearful. I feel like I was dreaming. It [the killings] makes no sense. It’s contrary to everything I believe in. At no time in my life have I intentionally harmed anyone. I don’t know why I did this.”
    After his guilty plea, Mason was sentenced to two life sentences in prison, escaping the death penalty. The Los Angeles District Attorney did not oppose Mason’s request to serve the sentence in South Carolina so he could be visited by family members.
    To the families Mason said, “Please forgive me. Do not be