Somebody Knew!

Editor Dick Finnegan of the Chicago Sun-Times thought he had shocking news: Chicago had more murders (326)--one-third of them unsolved--than any other U.S. city last year. But no one was shocked at the paper's story. Said Finnegan: "It was just as if the weatherman said it was going to rain tomorrow." Civic-minded Newsman Finnegan, with an appraising eye fixed on the circulation chart, decided to kick Chicago in the seat of its complacency. Soon, on billboards and in Page One headlines, the Sun-Times (circ. 635,000) was screaming, SOMEBODY KNOWS! Day after day, the newspaper raked up old unsolved murders; it offered $100,000 in rewards for clues* which would catch the killers.

Case No. 13 was the murder of 79-year-old Herman Engelhard, a miserly recluse worth $99,000. The hoodlums who broke into Engelhard's drab South Side apartment in April 1948 were counting on a big haul, but all they got was $12. Just the day before, Engelhard had deposited his cash in a bank. The maddened robbers beat Engelhard over the head with an iron pipe and left him to die.

Chicago's cops got nowhere in their hunt for the killers. Fortnight ago, a letter with a jagged edge was mailed to the Sun-Times. The letter told where to find the gang which had murdered old man Engelhard. Editor Finnegan had the tip checked enough to convince him that it was the jackpot, and hustled it over to the police. Last week detectives arrested four members of a South Side gang, who confessed. Boasted the Sun-Times on Page One: SOMEBODY KNEW!

It was the first case solved by Finnegan's campaign, but it would not be the last. At week's end, armed with another Sun-Times tip, police arrested a suspect who confessed to the June 1948 murder of Shoemaker John Onesto--Case No. 5.

-To protect the identity of tipsters, the Sun-Times told them to "sign" their letters with six-digit numbers and tear off a jagged corner of the page; when a murderer is convicted, the newspaper will print the "winning" number and the tipster can present the missing piece of paper and claim his $5,000 reward. The Los Angeles Mirror (TIME, June 13) has copied the Sun-Times scheme.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.