Senator's Daughter??

[VespaElf]

I remember reading a story about ,I belive an Ohio Senator's(?) daughter who was murdered in their house and the case has never been solved.
This happened in the 1960's.(big house,no forced entry,family heard nothing)

Sorry I don't have more info but this is an obscure case and I read about briefly!


Anyone have any info???


Thanks!

[joellegirl]

Hi, I believe you are talking about Valerie Percy, 21 year old daughter of former Illinois senator Charles Percy. It happened Sept 18,1966 in the affluent Chicago suburb of Kenilworth. The family found her dead in her bedroom that morning, having suffered repeated blows to her head and stabbed several times. I don't have any links handy at the moment but it is still an unsolved murder.

[VespaElf]

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!


I couldnt remember the name and I got the state wrong but at least I can now go search!!!

[Ivy]

Here's (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file/story/217714p-187324c.html) a link to an article about the case.

[2sisters]

I wonder if they have considered a political rival. Maybe an opponent or anyone who just didn't want him elected, some kind or radical, thought if the daughter was killed then he would drop out of the race. Valerie might have been picked at random, maybe they didn't care who as long as they got one of them. Just a thought, Im' sure that was looked into.

[Pharlap]

Hi, I believe you are talking about Valerie Percy, 21 year old daughter of former Illinois senator Charles Percy. It happened Sept 18,1966 in the affluent Chicago suburb of Kenilworth. The family found her dead in her bedroom that morning, having suffered repeated blows to her head and stabbed several times. I don't have any links handy at the moment but it is still an unsolved murder.
Oh my, I remember that all to well....
:angel:

[blueclouds]

Here's some info. Some is not on web anymore but I have it in print.

Here's a forum on the WHOLE CASE:
http://p216.ezboard.com/fcrimeandjustice13552frm92

http://weeklywire.com/ww/11-02-98/chicago_cover.html


HERE'S A BRIEF ARTICLE NO LONGER AVAILABLE. AUTHORSHIP UNKNOWN

An intruder entered the home of Senator Charles Percy (Rep.-IL) in Kenilworth, Illinois, on September 18, 1966, and brutally murdered his 21-year-old daughter, Valerie Percy. Senator Percy, a Christian Scientist, was the former President of Bell and Howell. Valerie Percy died of a fractured skull and 14 stab wounds: "An autopsy today showed that two stab wounds in the abdomen had penetrated the liver, one in the left breast had penetrated the heart, one in the right breast had reached a lung, and one through the throat had been stopped by the spinal column. Coroner Andrew J. Toman said there were also several cuts on the face, apparently inflicted with a double-edged knife, and several abrasions, like tooth marks, on two fingers of her right hand. But he said that death was caused by heavy blows to the left side of Miss Percy's head. He said the blows had probably been inflicted before the knifing since the victim did not scream. He said they had shattered her skull, leaving triangular depressions." [NYT 9.20.66 p43] Cash plainly visible on the dresser was left undisturbed. This was the first murder in Kenilworth in 75 years. Senator Percy's wife heard moaning from Valerie Percy's bedroom and discovered her murderer standing over her with a knife. The murderer had found his way onto the back patio of the Percy's home and cut through the locked screen door and pane of glass to gain entrance. The police conducted an extensive investigation and theorized the murderer was familiar with the layout of the Percy estate because the family dog alerted no one to the intrusion. The crime remained unsolved. When Charles Percy commenced his Senate campaign against Senator Paul Douglas (Dem.-IL), the police advised him to hire a bodyguard because he may have been the intended victim of the killer. Senator Paul Douglas, a former Marine, campaigned as a hawk, and suggested that small nuclear weapons should be used in Vietnam. Charles Percy wanted an Asian peace conference.

Former Vice President RICHARD NIXON was scheduled to campaign for Senator Percy around this time. He canceled his plans to do so and attended Valerie Percy's funeral. Senator Charles Percy was on NIXON'S Enemies List in the early 1970's. In 1971 Senator Charles Percy was also the victim of a bugging device; it was positioned on the underside of his car. On June 21, 1972, the FBI reported on a telephone number connected with the Watergate break-in this manner: "Telephone number three one two dash W T E A U E O T is believed to be typing error created by misplacing of hands on bottom line of keyboard. Instead of third, above letter combination would result from an intention to strike number two five three dash seven three nine five." (Striking of letter "A" was unexplained.) This telephone number lists to Thomas J. Houser. Chicago indices reflect Thomas J. Houser was formerly state campaign manager for U.S. Senator Charles H. Percy, in 1966...Was counter-intelligence agent U.S. Army...Thomas J. Houser will be contacted regarding his knowledge of McCORD and other Subjects..." [WFO 139-166 6.2172 rec. 6.27.72 serial illegible 139-4081-76]

[2sisters]

http://crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/famous/valerie_percy/index.html
I saw this on crime library features thought some might be interested.

[JBean]

I remember reading a story about ,I belive an Ohio Senator's(?) daughter who was murdered in their house and the case has never been solved.
This happened in the 1960's.(big house,no forced entry,family heard nothing)

Sorry I don't have more info but this is an obscure case and I read about briefly!


Anyone have any info???


Thanks!
This happened nearby the house where I grew up. the night before the murder, someone broke into our home while we slept. My father inadvertently scared him off, but after realizing what was happening he called LE. Long story short, based on the evidence left behind, the police determined the person that broke into our house the night before the Percy murder, was probably the same person..that murdered Valerie Percy

[Fran Bancroft]

:creepy Music: doo doo doo dooThis happened nearby the house where I grew up. the night before the murder, someone broke into our home while we slept. My father inadvertently scared him off, but after realizing what was happening he called LE. Long story short, based on the evidence left behind, the police determined the person that broke into our house the night before the Percy murder, was probably the same person..

[JBean]

:creepy Music: doo doo doo doono sh*t

[lakante]

I was 13 when this happened, and have been sort of haunted by the fact that this crime was never solved. I participate in another board and we are trying to stir up interest in this case. There is now a chapter in CTV's crime library. I have posted the link below if anyone is interested. There is no reason that this was never solved! :cool:

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/famous/valerie_percy/index.html

[JBean]

I was 13 when this happened, and have been sort of haunted by the fact that this crime was never solved. I participate in another board and we are trying to stir up interest in this case. There is now a chapter in CTV's crime library. I have posted the link below if anyone is interested. There is no reason that this was never solved! :cool:

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/famous/valerie_percy/index.html
Hi lakante..I'm in Baraboo and mom says hi!

[Sprocket]

Does anyone know, what kind of evidence they have? Could they possibly now use advanced methods, to test some of the evidence for trace, and compare that to the national database?

Due to the break in at JBeans house the night before :eek: I'd say it was unlikey that the perp knew the victim. Possibly she woke up and interupted a burgulary in process, and the individual killed her.

[JBean]

Does anyone know, what kind of evidence they have? Could they possibly now use advanced methods, to test some of the evidence for trace, and compare that to the national database?

Due to the break in at JBeans house the night before :eek: I'd say it was unlikey that the perp knew the victim. Possibly she woke up and interupted a burgulary in process, and the individual killed her.lakante..do you know? She has really followed this case. The only thing I remember from our house was that the blue tool markings on the screen he slit to gain entry to our house matched the markings on the slit screen into the Percy home. There were footprints cast in our flower beds, and a broken rain gutter where he hung before dropping form the 2nd floor.but there probably was plenty of evidence at the Percy home.
I think I read somewhere that this had been the first murder in Kenilworth in 75 years..so maybe the investigators didn;t know what to do!

[lakante]

lakante..do you know? She has really followed this case. The only thing I remember from our house was that the blue tool markings on the screen he slit to gain entry to our house matched the markings on the slit screen into the Percy home. There were footprints cast in our flower beds, and a broken rain gutter where he hung before dropping form the 2nd floor.but there probably was plenty of evidence at the Percy home.
I think I read somewhere that this had been the first murder in Kenilworth in 75 years..so maybe the investigators didn;t know what to do!
Read the chapter in Crime Library. There is no reason why they can't solve this case, except maybe political. There are 2 prime suspects, who were professional cat burglars at the time, associated with organized crime. Both are dead now, and the people who "ratted" on them are all shady characters. However, they do have physical evidence at the Chicago Crime Lab, and with today's forensics, they should be able to at least rule people out. Nobody in LE will talk to us about it. They say it's still an open investigation. :rolleyes:

[Dogfather]

WOW....a very interesting case. It should be able to be solved, if the evidence was stored properly. The sketch of the suspect looks like someone, to me.......anyone else see anything interesting about the sketch??


Rob

[Sprocket]

Read the chapter in Crime Library. There is no reason why they can't solve this case, except maybe political. There are 2 prime suspects, who were professional cat burglars at the time, associated with organized crime. Both are dead now, and the people who "ratted" on them are all shady characters. However, they do have physical evidence at the Chicago Crime Lab, and with today's forensics, they should be able to at least rule people out. Nobody in LE will talk to us about it. They say it's still an open investigation. :rolleyes:
Doesn't some woman, Dale Hinnman (? name, spelling) have a show on cold cases? I would think this would be a good one to submit to them to investigate, and do a show on. However, if it does lead to the perp beng dead, they may not be interested.

[lakante]

Doesn't some woman, Dale Hinnman (? name, spelling) have a show on cold cases? I would think this would be a good one to submit to them to investigate, and do a show on. However, if it does lead to the perp beng dead, they may not be interested.
We have contacted everyone. The only person to respond was David Krajicek who wrote the article for CTV. I supplied him with many of the articles listed in his bibliography and he follows our discussion on ezboard. Bill Kurtis is also from the Northshore and was a newscaster at the time. We have written him many times. He is well aware of the case.


Join us Sprocket!

http://p216.ezboard.com/fcrimeandjustice13552frm92

[nanandjim]

This happened nearby the house where I grew up. the night before the murder, someone broke into our home while we slept. My father inadvertently scared him off, but after realizing what was happening he called LE. Long story short, based on the evidence left behind, the police determined the person that broke into our house the night before the Percy murder, was probably the same person..that murdered Valerie Percy
OMG! How terrifying. I do believe in fate. It is amazing how things turned out. Thank God your father did something to scare off the intruder. I guess that it could have been one of your family members murdered that evening.

[Kathy C]

I remember the murder. I was 10 years old. The reason I remembered it is because one of the networks was going to show Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho for the first time on TV. The network spokesperson said out of respect to Senator Percy and his daughter Valerie, the station will not be airing Psycho.

Then I remember older people saying, people die everyday and because he's a Senator we can't see Psycho?

And then there's the memory of people saying about the Kennedy Assassination years afterward: A lot of people die violently. Is he the only one we have to feel sorry for?

[Pharlap]

Hi, I believe you are talking about Valerie Percy, 21 year old daughter of former Illinois senator Charles Percy. It happened Sept 18,1966 in the affluent Chicago suburb of Kenilworth. The family found her dead in her bedroom that morning, having suffered repeated blows to her head and stabbed several times. I don't have any links handy at the moment but it is still an unsolved murder.

I sure remember that. Valerie was one of twins, the other daughter wasn't
harmed....

[Jovin]

I sure remember that. Valerie was one of twins, the other daughter wasn't
harmed....
Was the other daughter sleeping in the same room? Most likely not.

[joellegirl]

Was the other daughter sleeping in the same room? Most likely not.

No, they had separate bedrooms. Valerie's twin, Sharon, had been out that night and when she got home around midnight(or was it 11pm?) she stopped by her sister's bedroom to return a borrowed raincoat. At that time Valerie was sitting up in bed watching tv. Sharon is the last person to have seen Valerie alive. I believe the murder happened closer to dawn, around 4-5 AM.

[mysteriew]

Any signs of sexual assault?
JBean, how old would you and your siblings have been at the time of the breakin? What I am thinking of is the recent string of break in's, where they break in and take a child and leave the house with her to sexually assault and murder.
Also, how close was your house to theirs? Is there any possibility that they could have mistaken your house for theirs? Was there any similiarities in either the houses or the family members where the perp could have gotten the wrong house?

[Marilynilpa]

Any signs of sexual assault?
JBean, how old would you and your siblings have been at the time of the breakin? What I am thinking of is the recent string of break in's, where they break in and take a child and leave the house with her to sexually assault and murder.
Also, how close was your house to theirs? Is there any possibility that they could have mistaken your house for theirs? Was there any similiarities in either the houses or the family members where the perp could have gotten the wrong house?
Today is the first time I've read or heard about this case, so I have a lot of catching up to do.

My first question, though, is this - why didn't the dog bark?

[HeartofTexas]

My gut feeling is that the Percy family doesn't want the attention a cold case expose on TV would bring. They are/were a very political family. Sharon, Valerie's twin sister, is now married to Jay Rockefeller. I believe he is/was governor of West Virginia now. He could be a senator now, too, for all I know.

BTW, the Crime and Justice forum on Valerie Percy is a very good one for anyone wanting to dig deeper into the case

JBean and Lakante, that is absolutely too eerie for words. Whoa! Gives me shudders just thinking about it, and the murder was almost 40 years ago.

[rachrach99]

My dog is almost 17 yrs old, and lazy, and doesn't do anything really......EXCEPT wake the entire neighborhood up by barking when someone walks within 100ft of my house that isn't supposed to be there. It usually wakes me up enough to at least peak out of the window. Also, why did it take the mother so long to go into Valerie's room? She obviously put up a fight, which I think would have been louder than any glass hitting the floor......just some rambling thoughts

[Marilynilpa]

My dog is almost 17 yrs old, and lazy, and doesn't do anything really......EXCEPT wake the entire neighborhood up by barking when someone walks within 100ft of my house that isn't supposed to be there. It usually wakes me up enough to at least peak out of the window. Also, why did it take the mother so long to go into Valerie's room? She obviously put up a fight, which I think would have been louder than any glass hitting the floor......just some rambling thoughts
Thanks for your comments. I was also wondering about that - the stepmother hears glass hitting the floor, assumes it's just one of the kids breaking a glass, but doesn't hear what has to have been a noisy battle coming from Valerie's room. The killer must have worked pretty fast, too - he had time to bludgeon Valerie and stab her in a fairly short period of time.

That, plus the fact that the dog didn't bark, makes me think something there's more to this than was ever revealed. Just doesn't seem to add up.

[Richard]

....That, plus the fact that the dog didn't bark, makes me think something there's more to this than was ever revealed. Just doesn't seem to add up.
Individual dogs behave differently when it comes to intruders, passersby, or family. Some go nuts with their barking at the drop of a hat. Others don't seem to take notice. It is partly the genetic make up of the particular dog, and partly in how the dog has been conditioned and trained by its owner. If a dog is constantly corrected for barking as a pup, then it may be hesitant to bark at potential intruders later in life.

A few years ago, there was a case in the news where a man's SUV was stolen from a gas station with his Labrador Retriever in the back seat. The man was heartbroken and on TV asking that the thief at least return his dog. A friend of mine, hearing the story, wondered why the guy would even want a dog that did nothing to protect his car. That said, it has always been my opinion that the best security system is to have a good dog.

There was another dog in the news a while back, this one a Chesapeake Bay Retriever. The dog's owners were awakened by noises of a commotion and some barking by the dog. Checking downstairs, the man saw an open window and some burgler tools on the floor. He called police who came to the house, looked about briefly, assumed that the burglar had been scared off, and started to write up their report. Meanwhile, the dog continued to sit facing a closet door, growling now and then. The police asked the owner to hold the dog back, and then opened the closet door, where they found the burgler crouching in fear and begging them to keep the dog away.

[Marilynilpa]

Individual dogs behave differently when it comes to intruders, passersby, or family. Some go nuts with their barking at the drop of a hat. Others don't seem to take notice. It is partly the genetic make up of the particular dog, and partly in how the dog has been conditioned and trained by its owner. If a dog is constantly corrected for barking as a pup, then it may be hesitant to bark at potential intruders later in life.

A few years ago, there was a case in the news where a man's SUV was stolen from a gas station with his Labrador Retriever in the back seat. The man was heartbroken and on TV asking that the thief at least return his dog. A friend of mine, hearing the story, wondered why the guy would even want a dog that did nothing to protect his car. That said, it has always been my opinion that the best security system is to have a good dog.

There was another dog in the news a while back, this one a Chesapeake Bay Retriever. The dog's owners were awakened by noises of a commotion and some barking by the dog. Checking downstairs, the man saw an open window and some burgler tools on the floor. He called police who came to the house, looked about briefly, assumed that the burglar had been scared off, and started to write up their report. Meanwhile, the dog continued to sit facing a closet door, growling now and then. The police asked the owner to hold the dog back, and then opened the closet door, where they found the burgler crouching in fear and begging them to keep the dog away.
This was in the newspaper account of the murder:

"The police conducted an extensive investigation and theorized the murderer was familiar with the layout of the Percy estate because the family dog alerted no one to the intrusion. "

That makes me think that the dog usually barked at outsiders. But that could just be a faulty assumption on my part.

[rachrach99]

This was in the newspaper account of the murder:

"The police conducted an extensive investigation and theorized the murderer was familiar with the layout of the Percy estate because the family dog alerted no one to the intrusion. "

That makes me think that the dog usually barked at outsiders. But that could just be a faulty assumption on my part.
I agree, that is what I get out of that statement. So, maybe the "intruder" was a regular on the property......

[Marilynilpa]

I agree, that is what I get out of that statement. So, maybe the "intruder" was a regular on the property......
That was my thought. It was someone the dog was used to seeing. Does anyone know if this dog normally lived inside the house?

[rachrach99]

Does anyone know if and how many people they might have employed at the home.........housekeeper, gardener, ect ?

[Marilynilpa]

Does anyone know if and how many people they might have employed at the home.........housekeeper, gardener, ect ?
The "Crime Library" coverage of this murder says"

"The family's two servants, Frederick Millington and Henry Witting, were scrutinized but cleared."

It doesn't make any mention of outside workers, i.e., gardeners, etc.

I have a subscription to NewspaperArchive.com, and when I have a chance I'll do some research on this to see what was reported at the time.

[rachrach99]

Thanks for the info. :)

[Marilynilpa]

I have searched NewspaperArchives.com and come up with literally hundreds of articles pertaining to the murder of Valerie Percy. I have read several of those articles, and it appears, at least from the earliest articles, that the police suspected whoever killed Valerie had to know the layout of the house. Also, the timing of when Valerie's stepmother first heard the glass break and when she finally went to Valerie's room raise some questions in my mind. But I'll wait until I've read all the articles, then will comment more on that.

There have been a few suspects in the murder of Valerie, with a couple of people pointing the finger of suspicion on each other.

Of interest to me is the fact that one month after her murder, the police had received almost 1100 tips from the public, none of which turned up any useful information.

I know there are people posting on this thread that know the area where this murder occurred, and know the police in that area. From what I read, there had never been a murder in this area before, and the local police really didn't have any idea how to conduct a murder investigation. I'd like to hear from those "in the know" as to whether you think that is a fair assessment. I know that eventually, other police departments as well as the FBI became involved in this murder investigation, but not until a few weeks after it happened.

I know the Percy family was (and still is, I believe) a prominent family in that area. I wonder if the police would "look the other way" if evidence was uncovered that pointed to a family member committing this murder?:confused:

I'll read more of the articles and let you know if I find anything of interest.