Unanswered questions-until now.
The police investigation spread into two forks: searching for evidence to corroborate Jones, Coates and Fontaine as the killers; searching for general evidence, standard police work based on the supposition that the three youths were guilty only of kidnap and rape, but not murder. Miss Soto still refused to cooperate. Both investigatory forks proved moot when Coates, Jones and Fontaine escaped from jail and were gunned down by our aforementioned hero: LAPD Sergeant Edmund Exley.
College man, World War II hero, son of the illustrious Preston Exley, Ed Exley used the Nite Owl case as a springboard for his ruthless personal ambition. He was promoted to captain at age 31 and as of this writing will soon become an inspector-at 36, the youngest in LAPD history. He is mentioned as a potential Republican office-seeker almost as often as his construction-king father. A few persistent rumors surround him: that the men killed were unarmed, that D.A. Ellis Loew dreamed up the Nite Owl confession that Coates, Jones and Fontaine allegedly made before they escaped. What is not generally known is that Ed Exley was in love with Inez Soto and condoned her lack of cooperation during the investigation, later bought her a house and has been intimately involved with her for close to five years.
And now, two recent developments have blown the Nite Owl case wide open.
Back in 1953, two men, brothers, came forward as material wimesses with information on the Nite Owl killings. Those men, Peter and Baxter Englekling, asserted that a pornography plot was at the base of the coffee shop massacre, per a scheme devised by one of the victims: ex-convict Delbert 'Duke' Cathcart. The LAPD chose to ignore this information. Then, almost five years later, Peter and Baxter Englekling were viciously murdered in the small upstate town of Gaitsville. Those kiffings, which took place on February 25, are unsolved with a complete absence of clues. But a long- unanswered question was about to be answered.
At San Quentin Penitentiary, a Negro prisoner named Otis John Shot-tell read a San Francisco newspaper account of the Englekling brothers' killings, an account which mentioned their tenuous connection to the Nite Owl case. The article got Otis John Shortell thinking. He requested an audience with the assistant warden and made a startling confession.
Otis John Shortell, in prison on an accumulation of grand-theft auto convictions and franldy desiring a sentence reduction as a reward for his cooperation, confessed that he was one of the men Coates, Fontaine and Jones 'sold' Inez Soto to. He was with Miss Soto and the three youths between the hours of 2:30 and 5:00 on the morning of the Nite Owl killings, «during the entire murder time frame». He told the warden that he never came forward to exonerate the three for fear of rape charges being filed against him. He further stated that Coates had a large quantity of narcotics in his car and that that was the reason he never relinquished its location to the police. Shortell cited a recent conversion to Pentecostal Christianity as his reason for finally making his confession, but prison authorities were dubious. Shortell petitioned for an in-cell lie detector test to prove his veracity and was given a total of four polygraph examinations. He passed all four tests conclusively. Shortell's attorney, Morris Waxman, has sent notarized copies of the polygraph examiner's reports to the «Daily News» and the LAPD. We have advanced this article. What will the LAPD do?
We decry the injustice of shotgun justice. We decry the motives of triggerman Ed Exley. We openly challenge the Los Angeles Police Department to reopen the Nite Owl Murder Case.
EXTRACT: L.A. «Times», March 11:
NITE OWL HUE AND CRY BUILDING
A welter of unrelated events and a fire fanned by a series of articles in the Los Angeles «Daily News» are pressuring the Los Angeles Police Department to reopen the 1953 Nite Owl murder case investigation.
LAPD Chief William H. Parker called the controversy 'a powder keg with a wet fuse. It's all a bunch of baloney. The testimony of a degenerate criminal and an unrelated double murder do not constitute a reason to reopen a case successfully solved five years ago. I stood by Captain Ed Exley's actions in 1953 and I stand by them now.'
Chief Parker's references allude to the February 25 murders of Peter and Baxter Englekling, material witnesses to the original Nite Owl investigation, and the recent testimony of San Quentin inmate Otis John Shortell, who claimed to be with the three formerly accused killers during the time frame of the Nite Owl murders. Citing Shot-tell's in-prison lie detector tests, his attorney Morris Waxman stated, 'Polygraphs don't lie. Otis is a religious man who carries a great burden of guilt for not coming forth to exonerate innocent men five years ago, and now he wants to see justice done. He has given three dead victims a lie detector validated alibi and now he wants to see the real killers punished. I will not cease publicizing this matter until the LAPD agrees to do their duty and reopen the case.'
Richard Tunstell, city editor of the Los Angeles «Daily News», echoed that sentiment. 'We've got our teeth sunk into something important. We're not going to let go.'
BANNERS
L.A. «Daily News», March 14:
J'ACCUSE-LAPD IN NITE OWL COVER-UP
L.A. «Daily News», March 15:
OPEN LETTER TO TRIGGERMAN EXLEY
L.A. «Times», March 16:
CONVICT'S LAWYER PETITIONS
STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL
FOR NITE OWL CASE
REOPENING
L.A. «Herald-Express», March 17:
PARKER TO THE PRESS: NITE OWL
A DEAD ISSUE
L.A. «Daily News», March 19:
CITIZENS DEMAND JUSTICE-PICKETS
STALK THE LAPD
L.A. «Herald-Express», March 20:
PARKER/LOEW IN HOT SEAT
GOVERNOR KNIGHT: NITE OWL
A 'POWDER KEG'
L.A. «Mirror-News», March 20:
THE WAGES OF DEATH
EXCLUSIVE PICS OF EXLEY/SOTO
LOVE NEST
L.A. «Examiner», March 20:
POLICE SWITCHBOARDS
FLOODED: CITIZENS VOICE
NITE OWL OPINIONS
L.A. «Times», March 20:
PARKER BACKS EXLEY AND HOLDS FIRM:
'NO NITE OWL REOPENING'
L.A. «Daily News», March 20:
JUSTICE MUST PREVAIL!
DEMAND POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY!
REOPEN THE NITE OWL CASE NOW!
PART FOUR. Destination: Morgue
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
The phone rang: odds on the press 20 to 1. Ed picked up anyway. 'Yes?'
'Bill Parker, Ed.'
'Sir, how are you? And thanks for that quote in the «Times».'
'I meant it, son. We're going to tough this thing out and let it pass. How's Inez taking it? The publicity, I mean.'
'My father said she's staying at Ray Dieterling's place in Laguna. And we broke it off a few months ago. It just wasn't working.'
'I'm sorry. Inez is a plucky girl, though. Compared to what she's been through, this thing should be cake.'
Ed rubbed his eyes. 'I'm not so sure it'll pass.'
'I think it will. The Gaitsville Police won't cooperate on the Englekling homicides and that Negro at Quentin has nil value as a witness. His polygraph seems valid, but his attorney is a grandstanding
