Guided Tour

In garish Acapulco the lavishly jeweled American widow and her elderly lawyer friend were steered everywhere by a handsome Mexican-American travel agent. Young Luis Fenton was a great find. His office was right in their hotel, Las Hamacas. Wealthy Mrs. Edith Hallock, 63, even wrote home admiringly about him to her sister in New York. With the help of Luis, 33, she and Joseph A. Michel, 70, saw everything--from the thrilling high dives of bronzed young natives off the towering sea cliffs to the intriguing low dives along the waterfront. Luis arranged a midnight yacht trip for the happy couple, even brought along the pretty hotel cashier to liven up the party. Wearing silly sailor hats, the laughing foursome cruised over to visit a nightclub on nearby La Roqueta Island.

Next night Fenton arranged another boat trip to "a very unusual nightclub" that he was sure his friends would enjoy. This time he brought along Daniel Rios, a waiter at their hotel. On the way, as the old couple sat restfully in the stern of the boat, the waiter and the travel agent stepped back to chat. Just as the tourists looked up, they were attacked and beaten to death with a baseball bat and a length of chain. The guests were stripped of money and about $18,000 in jewels, their bodies wrapped in chains. Then the hosts dumped them overboard and sailed home.

Under a Palm. Until messages for Attorney Michel went unanswered for several days, nobody at the hotel missed the tourists, but finally the police were called. Searching the rooms, the police found all in perfect order: baggage seemingly untouched, an unfinished letter on Mrs. Hallock's desk. In short order the case bounced onto front pages around the U.S. Alarmed at the potential damage to its booming tourism, Acapulco called in the Federal Security Police. As day after day passed with no word, Mrs. Hallock's distraught sister, Mrs. Edith Hoffman, arrived from New York. She promptly revealed that the missing couple's good friend in Acapulco had been Luis Fenton.

Frightened by the uproar, Fenton had meanwhile buried the jewels beneath a palm tree on a lonely beach. Questioned, he claimed steadfastly that he had hardly known the vacationers, said that as far as he remembered Mrs. Hallock had never displayed any jewelry more flamboyant than a trivial topaz ring. As Mrs. Hoffman tore Fenton's story to shreds, police grilled Waiter Rios, whose share of the loot had been only $200 in cash. Rios admitted that Fenton had hired him to help rob the couple. On the 17th day Fenton lost his nerve; news had arrived that two bodies had been washed ashore 100 miles north of Acapulco.

A Glass of Tequila. Fenton announced that he had indeed planned to rob the Americans, but that the job had been carried out by two local tourist guides. Quickly arrested, they protested innocence. Then came word that the bodies on the beach were those of two unidentified auto-accident victims. In jail Fenton was interviewed by a U.S. newsman, who gave him a glass of tequila to calm his nerves. Fenton broke the glass, slashed his wrists. Mercilessly, police grilled the remorseful travel agent far into the night--until at last he broke down, confessed in full. At week's end, Luis Fenton's trusting American friends were still missing, but divers hope to bring them home from his guided tour soon.

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