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The Reader's Digest Murder Case--A Tragedy in Parole
The Reader's Digest Murder CaseA Tragedy in Parole Author:Fulton Oursler The Copyright, 1952, is by Grace Perkins Oursler and Albert L. Cole, Executors of the estate of Fulton Oursler, deceased. Excerpt: "One Spring afternoon, in 1948, a lumbering, bushy-haired convice named Calman Cooper appeared before a parole board in Dannemora State Prison at Dannemore, New York. — "The prisoner had a violent history. After break... more »ing probation for earlier crimes, he had been sentenced to Atlanta Penitentiary as an auto thief, but escaped prison within a year. At large in New York under an alias, he was next nabbed during a burglary, only to go free on a suspended sentence; no one seems to remember why. Finally he was caught red-handed during a Brooklyn holdup, in which a night watchman was killed.
"For that murder in the second degree, Calman Cooper was given 20 years to life. One might suppose that he would be safely behing bard for at least 20 yesrs. But not so. With more than a third of his term still to serve, Calman Cooper applied for parole, and under the inflexible tenderness of the law, he was let out.
"for [Andrew] Petrini, [an amiable worker at the Reader's Digest home office]the parole certificate of Calman COoper was a death warrant.
..."This is the story of how the murderously ingenious job was planned, so carefully that at first it seemed a crime without a real clue, and of how, by tireless patience, through disheartening months of search, bu unremitting zeal and astute detective work this cold-blooded outrage was solved and the killers brought to justice by the New York State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation."
Includes police reports, trial transcripts, etc.« less