Murder of Bob Crane

Robert Edward Crane (July 13, 1928 – June 29, 1978) was an American actor, drummer, radio personality, and disc jockey known for starring in the CBS situation comedy Hogan's Heroes who was found bludgeoned to death on June 29th, 1978, in his Scottsdale, Arizona apartment.

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Crane was a drummer from age 11, and he began his career as a radio personality, first in New York City and then in Connecticut. He then moved to Los Angeles where he hosted the number-one rated morning show. In the early 1960s, he moved into acting, eventually landing the lead role of Colonel Robert Hogan in Hogan's Heroes. The series aired from 1965 to 1971, and Crane received two Emmy Award nominations.

Crane's career declined after Hogan's Heroes. He became frustrated with the few roles that he was being offered and began performing in dinner theater. In 1975, he returned to television in the NBC series The Bob Crane Show, but the series received poor ratings and was cancelled after 13 weeks. Afterward, Crane returned to performing in dinner theaters and also appeared in occasional guest spots on television.

Murder

On June 28, 1978, Bob Crane gave what would ultimately be his last performance at the Windmill Dinner Theater, in the play Beginner's Luck, finishing at 10:30 PM. Afterwards, he drove away with his friend, John Henry Carpenter. Victoria Berry Wells, who co-starred with him in Beginner's Luck saw him for the last time. The particular run of the play had not been going well for Crane.

According to one witness about what happened during hours after that, Crane told Carpenter he no longer wanted to continue engaging in a sexual lifestyle. Another witness claimed that she saw the two men drinking, even though Crane didn't drink at all, and dancing into the late hours.

The next day, on June 29, in the early hours of the morning, around 4:00 AM, as he was sleeping, his unknown assailant entered Bob's apartment silently and attacked Crane, who was sleeping in his bed, bludgeoning him to death, possibly with a camera tripod, and an electrical cord was tied around his neck.

His body was discovered later that day in the afternoon, by his co-star, Victoria Berry Wells, who last saw him alive the day before, entering his apartment after he failed to show up to a lunch meeting.

Crane's funeral was held on July 5, 1978, at St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Westwood, Los Angeles. An estimated 200 family members and friends attended, including Patty Duke, John Astin, and Carroll O'Connor. Pallbearers included Hogan's Heroes producer Edward Feldman, co-stars Larry Hovis and Robert Clary, and Crane's son Robert.

Trial and Acquittal of John Henry Carpenter

At the time, The Scottsdale Police Department had no homicide division, so it was ill-equipped to handle such a high-profile murder investigation. The crime scene yielded only a few clues; no evidence was found of forced entry, and nothing of value was missing, so burglary was ruled out. Detectives examined Crane's extensive videotape collection, which led them to Carpenter, who had flown to Phoenix on June 25 prior to the murder to spend a few days with Crane. Carpenter flew there for a four-day business trip for Akai Corporation, who he now worked for as a sales manager. Carpenter's rental car was subsequently impounded and searched. Several blood smears were found that matched Crane's blood type; no one else of that blood type was known to have been in the car, including Carpenter. DNA testing was not yet available, and as of a result, the Maricopa County Attorney declined to file charges.

In 1990, Scottsdale Police Detective Barry Vassall and Maricopa County Attorney's Office Investigator Jim Raines re-examined the murder evidence from 1978 and persuaded the county attorney to reopen the case. DNA testing was inconclusive on the blood found in Carpenter's rental car, but Raines did discover an evidence photograph of the car's interior that appeared to show a piece of brain tissue. By the time the case was reopened, the actual tissue samples recovered from the car had been lost, but an Arizona judge ruled that the new evidence was admissible. In June 1992, Carpenter was arrested and charged with Crane's murder.

John Henry Carpenter's trial began on September 12, 1994. At the trial, one of Crane's sons, Robert, testified that in the weeks before his father's death, Crane had repeatedly expressed a desire to sever his friendship with Carpenter. He said that Carpenter had become "a hanger-on" and "a nuisance to the point of being obnoxious". Crane expressed to his son Robert that he didn't need Carpenter hanging around him anymore. According to Robert, his dad called Carpenter the night before the murder occurred and ended their friendship.

Carpenter's attorneys aggressively attacked the prosecution's case as circumstantial and inconclusive. They presented evidence that Carpenter and Crane were still the best of friends, including witnesses from the restaurant where the two men had dined the evening before the murder. They noted that the murder weapon had never been identified nor found; the prosecution's camera tripod theory was sheer speculation, they said, based solely on Carpenter's occupation. They disputed the claim that the newly discovered evidence photo had showed brain tissue, and presented many examples of "sloppy work" by police, such as the mishandling and misplacing of evidence—including the crucial tissue sample itself. They also pointed out that Crane had been videotaped and photographed in sexual relations with numerous women, implying that any one of them might have been the killer. Other potential suspects proposed by defense attorneys included angry husbands and boyfriends of the women, and an unknown actor who had sworn vengeance after a violent argument with Crane in Texas several months earlier.

Carpenter was ultimately acquitted on October 31, 1994. As a result of the accusation that he had murdered Crane, he was fired from work as National Service Manager at the electronics firm Kenwood USA. He always maintained his innocence, and later said he felt a huge relief after his name had been cleared. One jury member later said in an interview that the jury believed there was insufficient proof to determine Carpenter's guilt and that "you cannot prove someone guilty on speculation." Carpenter's acquittal was spearheaded by defense attorney Dan Roth. The Law Offices of Roth and Roth were located in Scottsdale, Arizona. Carpenter's acquittal subsequently propelled Roth's reputation as one of Arizona's most sought-after defense attorneys.

In November 2016, the Maricopa County Attorney's Office permitted Phoenix television reporter John Hook to submit the 1978 blood samples from Carpenter's rental car for retesting, which used a more advanced DNA technique than the one used in 1990. Two sequences were identified, one from an unknown male, and the other too degraded (possibly Crane's) to reach a conclusion. This testing consumed all of the remaining DNA from the rental car, making further tests impossible.

Carpenter continued to maintain his innocence, until his death on September 4, 1998 from a Heart attack. Officially, Bob Crane's murder remains unsolved to this day.