Your Turn                                                                     

Time to release Illinois' longest-serving prison inmate

By ED McMANUS

If you lived in Chicago in the 1940s, you knew who William Heirens was — especially if you were a child. He was the bogeyman.

In December 1945, a woman named Frances Brown was killed in her North Side apartment. The killer used her lipstick to scrawl on the wall, "For heaven's sake, catch me before I kill more. I cannot control myself." Twenty-seven days later, 20 blocks to the north, a murderer climbed in 6-year-old Suzanne Degnan's bedroom window and abducted her. Her body parts were found in nearby sewers.

For 5 1/2 more months, parents kept their children indoors while police hunted unsuccessfully for the killer. The sensational Chicago press ridiculed the police for their failure. Finally, a 17-year-old University of Chicago student was arrested in the act of a burglary, and after several weeks of questioning, William Heirens confessed to the two killings and one other murder, pleaded guilty and received three life sentences.

Fast forward to today, half a century later. William Heirens is 66, an inmate at the minimum- security prison in down-state Vienna. He's been in prison longer than anyone in Illinois. He wants out, and supporters have mounted a campaign for his release. He says he was tricked in 1946 into admitting to crimes he didn't commit — that his lawyer told him if he maintained his innocence, he'd be tried, convicted and sent to the electric chair. Afterward, the state's attorney conceded in court that there had been "small likelihood of a successful murder prosecution" without "the cooperative help of defense counsel."

There are three main issues in the Heirens case:

• First, the question of innocence. A significant amount of evidence has been uncovered in recent years suggesting that he was not the killer. There is strong reason to believe that his fingerprint, found in the Brown apartment, was planted there by the police. Five handwriting experts say the lipstick message and a ransom note left at the Degnan home were written by two separate people, and that Heirens didn't write either.

Further, handwriting analyst Elizabeth Biestek contends that the ransom note appears to have been written by one Richard Thomas, a man who actually confessed to the Degnan crime but was released because the police didn't believe him.

• Second, the constitutional issues. The Illinois Supreme Court said in 1954 that there were "flagrant violations" of Heirens' rights, deserving "the severest condemnation." And Judge Luther Swygert of the U.S. Court of Appeals, in a dissenting opinion in a 1968 Heirens appeal, said the case "presents the picture of a public prosecutor and defense counsel, if not indeed the trial judge, buckling under the pressure of a hysterical and sensation-seeking press bent upon obtaining retribution for a horrendous act." But both courts refused to allow Heirens to change his plea.

• Third, rehabilitation. Even if Heirens was guilty, even if his rights were not violated enough to warrant reopening the case, should he continue to be incarcerated? By all accounts, he has been a model prisoner. Among other things, he was the first Illinois prisoner ever to obtain a college degree. He has sat by as most other "lifers" have been granted parole over the years.

He currently serves as secretary to the Catholic chaplain at Vienna. He has been offered a job in Albany, N.Y., working for a group that counsels ex-cons.

There are varying points of view on crime and punishment. A large portion of our society today believes in locking criminals up and "throwing away the key." There seems to be little talk of rehabilitation — much more emphasis on obtaining vengeance for crimes.

Then there are those, like me, who find it hard to understand why we keep people in prison who no longer need to be there.

Heirens' release is opposed by the Cook County state's attorney, the attorney general and Suzanne Degnan's sister. Prosecutors typically take a tough stand, but put yourself in Suzanne's sister's shoes: Your family was assured by the authorities in 1946 that the right man had been caught. You feel you owe it to your sister's memory to fight to keep him in prison.

But could the police have been mistaken? Or could they have framed William Heirens? It's almost too frightening to contemplate, not after all those years you've testified against his parole.

Well, I can't say how I'd feel if I were a member of the family. But I have spent a substantial amount of time in the visitors' room at Vienna with Bill Heirens, and I have found him to be a remarkable person. He is ready to be released.

Marguerite Sturgis, a member of the Parole and Pardon Board in 1975, put it best. "I have never seen so much accomplishment ..." she told Heirens at a parole hearing. "You are a good example of what rehabilitation is all about."

Twenty years later, he's still in prison.

Ed McManus is an attorney and a former contributing editor of Illinois Issues.