The Bad Seed

Slender, clean-cut Martin Daniels Jr., 16, had a problem, a pal and a plan. Marty's problem was his father. Martin Daniels Sr.. 35, a shiftless unemployed dockworker. Even in seedy, rough-and-tumble South Philadelphia, where the Daniels family lived in a three-room, $50-a-month apartment, Daniels Sr. was known as a hard-drinking no-good with a long record of arrests--burglary, assault and battery, stabbing, and slugging a cop. He was also rough on Marty, eldest of his six sons--a roughness that hardened into perpetual rage last fall, when the boy quit junior high school to take a job as a glassmaker's apprentice, then bought a beat-up '46 Dodge. Marty's father would not work--Mrs. Daniels supported the family as a $46-a-week bookbinding machine operator. But Marty's father liked to drive Marty's jalopy, and if he went out at night and found it short of gas, he would wake the youngster and beat him for not keeping a full tank.

Marty's long-smoldering hatred for his father came to an explosive boil two weeks ago when his old man took his car and $40 in grocery money, went off on a drinking spree with a woman. That night Marty and his mother caught up with the couple in a taproom, demanded the money. Marty's face turned white when his father snarled: "I don't have a cent left. We were over in Jersey and we had a good time." Telling his mother "I can't stand this any more," the boy got into his car, drove off to find his pal.

Dead Aim. Marty's pal was quiet, tousle-haired Curtis Raymond Edwards, 14, son of a Germantown widow living on social security. As the two boys drove around all night, Marty poured out the troubles he was having with his old man. ended up by saying, "I'm fed up with him. I'm going to get a gun." Ray had won a marksmanship medal at summer camp in 1955-Would he help out? Sure. Young Daniels borrowed a .30-30 Marlin hunting rifle and one cartridge, also picked up a second recruit--Albert Strolis, 15, who agreed to join in the plot because he felt sorry for Marty. The plot was simple: the trio would drive to St. Peter's church cemetery, just opposite the Daniels apartment, and hide behind the wall; when Daniels Sr. turned up, Marty would shoot him dead.

The plan worked--except for one hitch. The three boys went down to the graveyard wall, loaded the rifle, sat down and waited for Daniels Sr. They waited for two hours. But when he finally lurched down the street, mounted the steps of his house and sat down, another one of his sons was sitting there. Marty Daniels, afraid he might hit his brother, passed the rifle to Marksman Ray. "Here," he said, "you do the shooting. You're a better shot than I am." Marty's dad was sitting with his knees up to his chest, and Ray allowed that from that distance (60 ft.), he could hit Daniels any place he wanted. Marty told him to aim so the shot would hit him in the chest. Carefully Ray Edwards aimed the rifle, squeezed the trigger, and shot Martin Daniels Sr. square in the chest. In the resulting confusion, the boys ran out of the cemetery, jumped into Marty's car and drove to the Edwards apartment in Germantown.

The Other Father. One day last week the Philadelphia police picked up the three teen-agers as they were returning from Germantown, took them to City Hall, where they readily admitted the murder, signed confessions. There was no difficulty in establishing Marty Daniels' motive for plotting the murder: he hated his father. But what were Ray Edwards' motives? Even to the hardbitten cops, Ray's explanation was a shocker. Why had he fired the rifle? Edwards replied blandly: "Because [Marty] asked me to." Any other reason? "Well, I had the urge to kill."

Had he ever had the urge before? Said the 14-year-old: "I don't know."

Then the police found out something else about young Ray Edwards. On April 2 5, 1955 for shooting an old Philadelphia baker to death during an attempted burglary, Ray's father, Grover Cleveland Edwards, 36, was put to death in the electric chair.

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