Goldblatt, Jr., and Mr. Harold Goldblatt, the secretary, and their secretary, Mrs. Blanche Steiner, forty-four, were at the right rear of the building. Mr. Joshua Goldblatt, the treasurer, maintained his office in the Credit Department on the ground floor.
The sound of Abu Ben Mohammed's pistol shot attracted the attention of Mr. Samuel Goldblatt, Jr., who looked up from the work on his desk, and then stood up. When the executive offices had been built, one-way glass panels providing a view of the third-floor showroom had been installed. But they had never really worked, and eventually had been almost entirely covered up by a row of filing cabinets. The only way to see what was going on on the floor was to open the door and look.
Mr. Goldblatt did so, and found himself looking into the barrel of Abu Ben Mohammed's revolver.
'Hands up, honky!'
'Yes, sir,' Mr. Goldblatt said.
'Oh, myGod!' Mrs. Steiner said, thereby attracting Abu Ben Mohammed's attention.
'Out here, bitch!'
'Do what he says, Blanche,' Mr. Goldblatt said.
Abu Ben Mohammed then took careful aim at Mrs. Steiner's IBM typewriter and fired. The machine seemed to lift slightly off the desk and then settled back. There was a faint screeching noise, and then, a short-circuit within the typewriter having caused a fuse to blow, the overhead lights in the executive office went out. Desk lamps on Mr. Goldblatt's and Mrs. Steiner's desks continued to burn and produced sufficient light to see.
'Oh, myGod!' Mrs. Steiner wailed.
'Please don't hurt anyone,' Mr. Goldblatt pleaded. 'We'll do whatever you want us to do.'
Abu Ben Mohammed then struck Mr. Goldblatt on the head, with a downward slashing motion of his pistol, causing him to fall to his knees and also causing a small cut on the (bald) top of his head.
'Get the money and some rope,' Abu Ben Mohammed ordered.
'What?' Mrs. Steiner asked.
'There's no money up here,' Mr. Goldblatt said. 'Honest to God there isn't!'
'Bullshit!' Abu Ben Mohammed said. 'Get the fucking money!'
Mr. Goldblatt reached into the hip pocket of his trousers and came out with his wallet that he handed to Abu Ben Mohammed.
'Take this,' he said.
Abu Ben Mohammed took the wallet, and from it not less than one hundred twenty dollars and not more than two hundred dollars and put the bills in a pocket of his dashiki. Then he threw the wallet at Mr. Goldblatt.
'Give him your purse, Blanche,' Mr. Goldblatt said.
'Go get it,' Abu Ben Mohammed said to Mrs. Steiner, and then added to Mr. Goldblatt, 'If you're lying to me, if we find any money in that office, I'm going to blow your fucking honky head off.'
'I swear to God, believe me, we don't keep any money up here.'
'Then what's that fucking safe for?'
'Business papers. Look for yourself.'
'Don't you tell me what to do, you honky motherfucker!' Abu Ben Mohammed said, and swung his pistol at Mr. Goldblatt's head again. Mr. Goldblatt was able to ward off most of the force of this blow with his hands, suffering only a minor bruise to his left hand.
Mrs. Steiner took her purse from a desk drawer and offered it to Abu Ben Mohammed. A coin purse contained approximately sixteen dollars in bills, and there was approximately sixty dollars in her wallet. Abu Ben Mohammed removed these monies and placed them in a pocket of his dashiki.
On the second floor, meanwhile, Hector Carlos Estivez had startled Mrs. Emily Watkins by ordering her to remove her shoes and stockings. When she had done so, he used one of the stockings to bind her hands behind her back. He then told her to lie down again, on her stomach, and when she failed to so quickly enough to satisfy him, he pushed her so that she fell.
A minute or so later Mrs. Watkins was ordered to get up, and when she was not able to get to her feet quickly enough to satisfy Hector Carlos Estivez, he kicked her in the side, and then jerked her to an upright position.
She saw then for the first time Mr. Ted Sadowsky, a Goldblatt employee specializing in televisions and stereo equipment, who had been in the front part of the building. He was being held at gunpoint, probably a Colt Police Positive.38 Special caliber snub-nosed revolver (or the Smith amp; Wesson equivalent) by a suspect subsequently identified as Randolph George Dawes, aka Muhammed el Sikkim, Negro Male, twenty-four, five feet nine inches, 160 pounds.
'Tie the cocksucker up,' Hector Carlos Estivez said to Muhammed el Sikkim, and handed him Mrs. Watkins's other stocking.
Muhammed el Sikkim tied Mr. Sadowsky's hands behind his back with Mrs. Watkins's stocking, and then led the two of them to the stairway between the passenger and freight elevators and took them to the third floor, where he ordered them to get on the floor on their stomachs.
'No fucking rope and no fucking money,' Abu Ben Mohammed said to Muhammed el Sikkim.
'Use stockings. Tell that kike bitch to take hers off.'
Mrs. Steiner was then forced to remove her panty hose, which were torn apart at the crotch and one part of them then used to tie her arms behind her back. Mr. Samuel Goldblatt was then tied in a similar manner, with the other leg of Mrs. Steiner's panty hose, and he and Mrs. Steiner were then forced to lay on their stomachs beside Mr. Sadowsky and Mrs. Watkins.
Within the next five minutes, all Goldblatt employees, plus the one customer in the store, Mrs. Doris Martin, were brought to the third floor by the perpetrators. These included the three employees on duty in the first-floor Credit Department, the remaining salespeople, and Mr. Monahan.
From this point, inasmuch as all Goldblatt employees (including Mr. Samuel Goldblatt, Jr.) and Mrs. Martin were lying on their stomachs on the floor of the third floor of the Goldblatt Building with their arms bound behind them, the only witnesses to the perpetrators' actions on the first and second floors of the Goldblatt Building were the perpetrators themselves.
What is known is that three (or four) of the perpetrators (almost certainly including Abu Ben Mohammed, and probably including Hector Carlos Estivez and Muhammed el Sikkim) went to the Credit Department on the first floor and
(a) Removed approximately four hundred eighty dollars in bills and coins-in-rolls from the cashier's cash drawer.
(b) Broke into the interior compartments (three) of the safe. The safe itself was open at the time the robbery began. There was no cash in the safe.
(c) Emptied the contents of a wastebasket (mostly waste paper) into the safe and set it afire.
Sometime during this period, Mr. John Francis Cohn, forty-nine, of Queen Lane in East Falls, supervisor of the Maintenance Department of Goldblatt amp; Sons Credit Furniture amp; Appliances, Inc., apparently entered the building via a door on Rodman Street, the narrow alley at the rear of the building. This self-closing door was closed to the public and was normally locked. Mr. Cohn had a key.
Apparently, Mr. Cohn then descended to the basement of the store by the stairwell between the freight and passenger elevators. He then uncrated (or completed uncrating) a special, demonstration model Hotpoint washing machine, constructed of a plastic material so that the interior of the apparatus was visible, and, using a hand truck, put the machine onto the freight elevator.
He then apparently ascended to the second floor, where he had received instructions to install the machine in the Washer and Drier Department.
He moved the machine to the rear of the second floor, and then apparently became aware that there were no salespeople on duty. (Or possibly wished to ascertain precisely where he was to set up the machine.) He then got back onto the freight elevator and descended to the first floor, and opened the door and the elevator gate.
At this point, apparently, he saw the perpetrators and attempted to flee by moving the elevator. At this point, the perpetrators saw him, and at least two of them then fired their weapons at him.
Mr. Cohn was struck by four bullets, two of.38 Special caliber and two of.45 Colt Automatic Pistol caliber. Three additional.38 Special caliber and one additional.45 ACP bullets were later found in the woodwork of the elevator.
