Free Slaughter on North Lasalle by Robert L. Snow

movies than any real threats.
    By December 8, 1971, more than a week after the murders, McAtee and his team realized that they didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Instead of dropping names off their suspect list, the more they investigated, the more suspects they added. Their attempts to approach the case by establishing a motive seemed equally blocked.
    “The biggest problem in most homicides is finding a motive,” said Popcheff. “In this case we had at least five possible motives.”
    The detectives found that the three victims had been in arguments and fights with dozens of people in the bars they prowled on Friday nights, and they’d also been sleeping with dozens of other men’s wives and girlfriends. There were a number of people, both in the men’s business and social lives, who felt that the men had done them wrong. Consequently, because of the victims’ lifestyles, McAtee and his team found that the list of possible motives, just like the list of suspects, continued to grow. The
Indianapolis Star
said of the North LaSalle Street case that it wasn’t three murders that lacked a motive, but rather that there were too many possible motives. The crime could have been motivated by jealousy, involving three likely possibilities: an enraged father, a jealous husband or boyfriend, or even jealousy stemming from B&B’s incredible success. Or, the newspaper theorized, the motive could have been financial: Maybe the men had borrowed money from loan sharks and were unable to pay itback, or perhaps it was a message from the Mob, who was trying to muscle in on the microfilm business. Or the murders could have been motivated by revenge, coming from someone the trio had reportedly embarrassed or humiliated in one of the cheap bars they prowled. But which was it?
    The detectives realized that, like narrowing their investigation in order to pinpoint a suspect, they needed to do the same with a motive. According to the coroner, the murderer or murderers had grabbed the victims by the hair, stretched their necks taut, and then sliced through skin, muscle, cartilage, and bone. The blood flow would have been tremendous. And whoever did this had to do it three times. This meant the killer or killers had to be extremely motivated.
    However, through their investigation, the detectives did realize that it was very unlikely that such a crime could have been committed by an amateur. And the idea of several amateurs teaming up seemed unlikely. The lack of forced entry, and especially the manner in which the three men were bound, pointed to someone who knew what he was doing. Consequently, news reports after the murders said that several of the detectives involved in the investigation suspected that the murders were the work of hired killers.
    On December 9, 1971, the
Indianapolis Star
put forth the theory that the three men had been killed by organized crime as a warning not to try to stop the Mob infiltration of the microfilming business. Microfilming was relatively new technology but had the potential formaking a lot of money. The newspaper also suggested the possibility that B&B Microfilming might have been just a front for the Mob, who had paid to start it up, or that perhaps the Mob had tried to muscle in on B&B and the men had resisted. This theory was supported by an earlier interview with Captain R. Wayne Hall, head of the Indiana State Police Organized Crime Unit, who, when asked if he thought it was possible that organized crime was involved in the North LaSalle Street murders, told the reporter, “You can read between the lines.”
    In addition to all of this, the possibility of loan sharks or some illegal source of money also arose. “These guys were spending money they weren’t making,” said Popcheff. “And we couldn’t understand where that money was coming from.” During their investigation, the detectives found that the men were spending a lot of money partying and drinking. Also, experts had told the detectives