The murder of Bob Crane
Scottsdale, United States, 1978
This case is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places and events in the game do not portray real people. The account below is a factual summary, based on public sources, of the case that served as inspiration.
On the afternoon of June 29, 1978, the actor Bob Crane, 49, star of the comedy series "Hogan's Heroes," was found dead in apartment 132A of the Winfield Place complex in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he was staying during the run of the play "Beginner's Luck" at the Windmill Dinner Theatre. He was found by his castmate Victoria Ann Berry, after he missed an appointment. Crane had been beaten to death about the head, and an electrical cord was tied around his neck, with no signs of strangulation. The weapon was never found; investigators believed it was a camera tripod.
The main suspect was John Henry Carpenter, a salesman of electronic equipment for Sony and later Akai, a friend of Crane who traveled to follow the actor's tours and recorded with him on video their sexual encounters with women. Carpenter had arrived in Phoenix on June 25 to spend a few days with him. According to the actor's son, on the night before the crime Crane phoned Carpenter to end the friendship. Police seized Carpenter's rental car and found bloodstains of the same blood type as Crane's, but with no DNA testing at the time, prosecutors decided not to file charges.
Sources
In the game
Tripod in the Dumpster
Scottsdale, Arizona, Thursday, June 29, 1978, 3:00 pm. In apartment 14B of the Palo Verde Residences, the actor Warren Keeley, 49, star of an old TV comedy series, was found dead in his bedroom at 11:30 am.
The case was reopened in 1990, and Carpenter was arrested and charged with the murder in June 1992. At the 1994 trial, the defense argued that the two were still friends and pointed to flaws in the investigation and in the handling of evidence, part of which had been lost over time. The jury acquitted him on October 31, 1994. Carpenter died in 1998, still maintaining his innocence, and no one else was ever tried for Bob Crane's death.
