Suburban Murder - Locked in a Closet

In 1964 three elderly siblings were brutally beaten, robbed and left in a closet to die. Learn about the Parsons; William, Hilda and Lenore, their lives and what led up to the unsolved murders that are still on the Livonia Police Department's Cold Case list sixty years later.  

Transcript

As we continue with the Suburban Murder series I find myself getting back into similar situations that I dealt with years ago while working on my true crime book.

It’s a strange feeling entering a Freedom of Information Act request. I feel like I’m asking permission to get into the minds of other people… to see the hard work that they did to solve a horrific case… to learn intimate details about the lives of the victims… to read about people that might be or worse yet, are the suspect or suspects.

This case is a little different because it’s a sixty year old cold case. One of only a handful that the Livonia Police Department have hanging over their heads. 90% of the LPD wasn’t even born when this case happened and trying to solve it now would be next to impossible. It will likely remain a cold case until it drifts away from memory completely. 

The department was very helpful in granting me access to their files and crime scene negatives. I have fully immersed myself in this story and I’m excited to share it with you. Let’s get to it. 

Welcome to Year Four of the Curator135 Podcast. I’m your host Nathan Olli and this is Episode 72 - Suburban Murder: Locked in a Closet.

William Finlay Parsons was born in August of 1889. He was the third child born to Fendley and Elizabeth Parsons with his older sister, Hilda, being five-years-old at the time of his birth and his brother Kenneth, two. Another sister, Lenore came along in 1895. The four were raised in the capital city of George Town on the Cayman Islands within the West Indies.  

In 1911, at the age of 21, William Parsons set off on his own and immigrated to the United States. Within two years, his sisters Hilda and Lenore made the voyage together and joined William in Battle Creek, Michigan. It wasn’t long before the girls graduated from Nursing school at Nichols Memorial Hospital in 1916.

Two years later, as World War I was coming to a close, William graduated from Ferris State University. A short time later he’d be drafted into the army. He and Lenore, who was working as a registered nurse, both spent time at Camp Custer, a hastily built fort that served as a training camp for newly enlisted and drafted soldiers in Michigan. In July, William left for France with the 85th Infantry Division. His ammunition train unit luckily never saw any action. 

By 1919, the war ended and William returned home to Battle Creek. He studied medicine at the University of Michigan and began to work as a chiropractor. In January of the following year, his sister, Hilda married a gentleman named William Whitright. It was a joyous occasion that both William and Lenore were a part of. Hilda, it would turn out, was the only one of the three to ever marry. 

Hilda quickly became pregnant and in October of 1921 the couple had a son they named Kenneth. Sadly, he passed away within a month. 

The three siblings, even with one married, stayed very close. Until the early 1930’s Lenore and William lived together just down the street from Hilda and her husband. At this stage of his professional career William was doing well financially. He loved spending time hunting and kept his family living well. 

In September of 1936, William Parsons purchased a newly built home in the up and coming Rosedale Gardens neighborhood of Livonia, Michigan. Not long after, William, Lenore, Hilda and her husband moved into the two story 1800 square foot house that sat on a corner lot on Melrose and Elmira. 

After the move to Livonia, William leased an office in the gorgeous Michigan Theater building in Downtown Detroit. Built in 1925, it stood 13 floors and contained a bar, restaurant, retail space, office space, and a parking garage. While his sisters would continue to see patients inside their new home, William would spend his work days at his new Michigan Theater office.

In the late 1930’s and early forties William began to see his name come up in the local newspapers. In 1939 he was found guilty of assault and battery after he attempted to treat a patient at Lincoln Hospital. Since he wasn’t a registered employee of the hospital, a Dr. Fred Smith asked him to stop. Parsons didn’t appreciate being questioned and punched Dr. Smith. He didn’t serve any jail time but he was fined $25. 

Almost yearly, beginning in 1940, Parsons wrote in to various Michigan newspapers after returning from his great hunting expeditions. In one news article they showed a photo of Parsons with a couple of his trophy mounts. On that particular trip he shot a 500 pound bear as well as a 10-point buck. William owned property north of Escanaba as well as along Walloon Lake. 

William Parsons was heavily involved in the Detroit Elks Lodge and was, at one time, the Exalted Ruler of Lodge number 34. In 1942 he quit the Elks, and then sued them for a quarter after saying their raffles were rigged. Over time he filed 16 separate suits and went as high as the federal courts. He’d made more than a few enemies at his old stomping grounds.

The next time William found himself in the news was in 1948. In July of that year, a man named Peter Jacobs showed up in Parsons’ office. Jacobs was a well-known Detroit weight-lifter who had posed for pictures in various physical-culture magazines. He was big and intimidating. 

Jacobs stormed into William’s office claiming that because of the shoddy work he’d done on his wife, Sylvia, they’d accrued two thousand dollars in hospital bills. Parsons said he had no recollection of treating anyone named Sylvia. Jacobs threatened to expose him unless he reimbursed the couple for the two grand.  

Parsons paid the man $1600. It was all he could come up with on short notice. Before Jacobs left, the chiropractor was able to wrestle away the supposed hospital bills after the two exchanged blows. Parsons could smell an extortion attempt and wanted evidence. 

Meanwhile, an acquaintance of Jacobs named Eddie Hill had been in Texas looking for work when he met a pair of twenty-one-year-old men named Ernest Betke and Robert Markland. The trio drove up from Texas, stopping at Markland’s Indiana home, before arriving in Detroit. 

Hill introduced the two Texans to Jacobs who hatched a plan to get more money out of William Parsons. In the following days, the four men drove to William’s office. Betke and Markland were told to go in and rough him up. They did, and came out of his office with $200. It wasn’t enough for Jacobs who later called William Parsons demanding $2000 once again. 

Parsons agreed to get the money and that he’d have it by that Saturday. Then he telephoned the police, told them the story and helped set the trap. 

When the car pulled up to the Michigan Theater Building that Saturday, Betke and Markland went inside again. Two detectives were hiding in the office and as soon as one of the men made the threat, they arrested the pair. Other policemen were waiting outside and took down Jacobs and Hill. 

Detectives went to hospital authorities who were able to verify that the hospital bills had been stolen and altered by Jacobs. There was no record of the listed case number. They’d been forged.

All four men would end up serving jail time for the crime. In addition to the extortion charges, the investigation led to uncovering a group, led by Jacobs, who were stealing car parts from the nearby Hudson Motor Car Company. Several thousand dollars worth of car parts were found stashed in a garage owned by Jacobs. Of all the men brought to justice, Jacobs received the most jail time at Jackson State Prison.

Things calmed down for William Parsons after that. However, in June of 1955, Hilda’s husband William Whitwright passed away at the age of 73. The home on Melrose was now filled with three Parsons siblings, all unmarried, with no children.   

As the 1960’s approached, rumors were spreading that when William Parsons wasn’t working as a chiropractor he would make money, off the books, by performing abortions.

According to friends, William had developed a technique that via massage and pressure, he could cause a woman to abort without using any instruments whatsoever. In May of 1960 Parsons was charged with attempting an abortion on a 19-year-old girl from nearby Lake Orion. He pleaded innocent and was released on $1000 bond. 

Prior to Roe v. Wade, 30 states prohibited abortion without exception, 16 states banned abortion except in certain special circumstances, 3 states allowed residents to obtain abortions, and New York allowed abortions generally. In Michigan, it was banned. 

In January of 1961, it took a jury only 25 minutes to find William Parsons guilty. He was facing up to four years in prison. His lawyer sent in appeals and did all he could to keep the chiropractor out of prison. Parsons ended up receiving a probationary sentence.

Unfortunately for him, more trouble followed. In late February of 1962 while he was out on appeal to the State Supreme Court, he performed an abortion procedure on a 34-year-old widow. After a few days she felt like something had gone wrong and contacted her regular physician. Her physician then reported Parsons to the authorities. 

William Parsons waived examination, stood mute at the arraignment and was let off on $3000 bond. He wouldn’t be as lucky this time however and ended up pleading guilty to Criminal Abortion in December of 1962. For his crime the judge sentenced him to two and a half to four years at Jackson State Prison. 

For the next year and a half, Hilda and Lenore would have to fend for themselves. Protection wouldn’t be an issue. They owned a German Shepherd that was by all accounts, a nasty, vicious dog that needed to be locked in a basement before anyone could visit. Their brother Kenneth who lived in New York at the time wired them money every month and they would also receive help from family friends and neighbors. 

Not long after her brother’s incarceration, Hilda found out that she had cancer. Her treatment required daily cobalt treatments at Henry Ford hospital. When her sister Lenore couldn't take her, she’d often rely on William’s good friend, Robert Gladney. Gladney ended up doing a lot for the sisters while William was locked up. 

Another helper was a man named Jack Harwood. He was a friend of William Parsons and tried to be there for the sisters when he could. Hilda and Lenore made extra cash from Harwood who rented their car from time to time.  

Finally in July of 1964, after over a year and a half in prison, his sisters finally got word that William was being released. He was set to return on July 15th, a month before his 75th birthday. At this point, all three were getting up there in years, Hilda was now 80-years-old, and Lenore sixty-eight.

The two got a letter in the mail from William’s Parole Officer stating that as part of his parole, he was not to have firearms in his home for the duration of it. They gathered up what they could find and called Robert Gladney on July 11th. He arrived at their home a short while later and collected William’s 12-gage Ithaca pump shotgun, a 22 caliber long rifle and his 30-06 Remington rifle with clip and scope.    

William was driven home from Jackson State Prison on July 15th. There was no celebration or welcome home party but Hilda and Lenore were glad to have him home. He planned on resting for a few days and then getting back to his work as a chiropractor. 

On the weekend of July 17th and 18th, something strange happened to another, different Parsons family in neighboring Farmington, Michigan. William R Parsons, lived on Ridgeway with his children. That weekend, he happened to be out of town, but his parents were in from Florida to watch their grandchildren. At 2:30 am while everyone was fast asleep inside the home, the phone rang… 

Phone Sound Effect

The grandfather, Walter, answered the phone. 

“This would be a good night for a murder.” the voice on the other end said, and then hung up.

Thirty minutes later the phone rang again. This time there was a woman on the other end. The grandfather was tired and could barely understand the woman who had some sort of a foreign accent. 

“What are you doing up so late?” She asked.

“I was answering the phone,” he replied. “What do you want?”

“I just wanted to see if you were up,” she answered.

“Do you know who you are talking to?” He wouldn’t get an answer. The phone line went dead. 

 At 9:30 am, the last phone call came into the Parsons home. Once again, the grandfather answered. Whoever had called sounded no older than three years old. There was babbling and gibberish he couldn’t understand and then he hung up.  

The grandfather reported the phone calls to the Farmington Police Department and went on with his weekend. 

Back on Melrose, in Livonia, things were returning to normal for the Parsons siblings. On Monday, the 20th a man stopped by to clean the Parsons furnace at William’s request. On the 22nd another man came by at 3:00pm for a chiropractic appointment with Lenore. In both cases, William removed their German Shepherd from whatever area they needed to be in and retreated to his room. 

On Thursday, the 23rd Robert Gladney stopped by and spoke with William outside in the afternoon around 4:00 pm. He mentioned that he’d be bringing some groceries for them in the next day or two. William was appreciative and gave Robert some money towards the bill. 

Later that evening, a neighbor, Evelyn Smith tried to call the sisters but got no answer. Another neighbor, Evelyn Brooks had been asked by the sisters to take Hilda to the hospital for her cobalt treatment on Friday. She originally stated that she didn’t think she could but tried calling eight separate times Thursday evening with no response. On Friday morning at 8:00 am she called again to offer her help but the phone line was now just busy. 

On Saturday, July 25th Robert Gladney went and got some groceries for the Parsons’. He purchased one pound of bacon, a watermelon, and a jar of coffee. At 11:30 he arrived at the Parsons home. Gladney went to the front door and knocked. There was no response. He walked around back and didn’t see anyone. He knew better than to knock on the back door, the German Shepherd would go crazy. He thought he could hear it barking from the basement. 

He went back to his car and blew the horn… still nothing. He retrieved a piece of scrap paper and wrote out a note, “Bill, look in the car,” and slid it between two pieces of fencing. He then grabbed the groceries and walked into the open garage. He placed them on the seat of the Parsons’ automobile, closed the door, and returned home. 

By Saturday evening into Sunday, all of the neighbors who knew the Parsons were talking. People noticed that their blinds hadn’t moved in days, chores weren’t being done and wash had been left hanging on the line. Someone needed to call the police to do a welfare visit. 

On the morning of Sunday, July 26th, 1964 30-year-old Livonia Police Department Patrolman William Crayk was working his shift. Over the radio he received orders to do a welfare check at the Parsons home on Melrose. The neighbor who called hadn’t seen any of the three family members in days. 

He arrived at 11040 Melrose and noticed that the house looked pretty closed up. The shades were all drawn and the front door was locked up. Crayk went around to the back and noticed the laundry hanging on the line and the garage door open. He could see the family’s white, four door, Pontiac parked inside. A moment later, a pair of friends of the family, Paul Drumm and Kenneth Stumpf, arrived at the home. They were worried for their friends and came when they saw the police car. They warned him about the dog that they could hear barking. He asked them to wait outside and then went in through the open screen door in the back

Upon entering the home, he found himself in the kitchen. Immediately he noticed an odd pool of blood splatter in the middle of the floor. It was dried. He noticed a butcher knife on the counter, next to a phone that had its line removed from the jack. The kitchen table looked as if someone had set it for dinner, there was a plate full of dried out tomatoes in the center. The room next to the kitchen was completely ransacked. Papers were strewn across the floor and all of the drawers were pulled from the dressers. Two electric fans were plugged in and running. 

The officer climbed the stairs and found the upstairs bedrooms to be in the same shape as the room downstairs. Mattresses were removed from the bed frame and in some cases, sliced open, revealing the springs inside. 

A closet at the top of the stairs was locked. The officer noticed through vents at the top and bottom of the closet door that there was a light on inside. At the bottom of the door the wood was split as if someone had been kicking at it from the inside. There was also, what looked like coat hangers sticking out through one of the vents. In front of the door, on the hallway carpet lay a skeleton key. 

It was only when the officer noticed a foul odor emanating from inside the closet that he decided to clear the house until the detective bureau arrived.

Livonia Detectives Jay Warner and Robert Turner were called to the scene and arrived around 11:30 am. Turner entered the house through the rear door and walked to the front, letting Warner in. They could hear the dog barking but determined that it was locked up in the basement. They’d figure that out later. 

They noticed all of the same things that Patrolman Crayk had seen. Rooms in shambles, an uneaten dinner, the blood on the kitchen floor and the skeleton key laying in front of a closet door. 

The closet door had vents at the top and bottom. They could see the light on inside. It wasn’t long before they noticed the smell. Detective Warner picked up the key and put it into the lock.

The contents of the closet would be etched into these detectives' brains forever. 

What they noticed first was how small the closet was. Six feet deep and no more than three and a half feet wide. There was a man, William Parsons they presumed, in a seated position with his legs outspread towards the door. He was leaning against the wall with his head slumped forward. He was wearing pants but not a shirt.

Beneath William’s body were his sisters, side by side. One laying with her head away from the door and one with her head towards the opening. William appeared to be seated on top of Lenore and Hilda. It was obvious to detectives that he’d been the last one placed inside the closet. It also appeared likely that he was the only one that wasn’t already dead when placed into the closet.

There were smears of blood on all three closet walls and on the interior of the closet door. He’d also apparently tried to get the door open through the vent holes at the bottom of the door by manipulating clothes hangers through the tiny openings. 

William Parsons had suffered the longest… in the heat of a locked closet door with no place to step that wasn’t a body part belonging to the two women he’d been closest with. Gauges on the inside of the door showed that he tried to pry the door open but he was 74-years-old, weak from the heat and suffering from whatever the assailant or assailants did to the three of them..    

Detective Warner returned to the kitchen, plugged the phone back into the wall and studied the dried, pooled blood on the kitchen floor. Looking up, he realized that the closet was right above that spot. Someone’s blood had seeped through the upstairs flooring and dripped down to the kitchen below. 

The Parsons’ phone rang and he answered it. It was Robert Gladney. The detective told him what had transpired and Gladney gave him all the information he could. Including the note he’d left, the groceries on the car seat and a warning about the dog. 

Gladney also made the detectives aware of a man named Jack Harwood. They’d later find a work order inside of William’s car with Harwood’s name on it. They’d pay him a visit shortly. 

A crowd was now forming along both Melrose and Elmira by the time Police Captain Michael Vorgitch arrived. The detectives filled him in and it was decided that they needed to look in the basement. In order to do that they deemed it necessary to put the dog down. 

After discussing the German Shepherd with neighbors the officers agreed that for anyone to have gotten into the home, one of the Parsons siblings must have known the assailant or assailants and taken the dog down willingly.

While the Captain surveyed the scene and interviewed witnesses, Detective Warner got to work at tracking down Jack Harwood. He first went to the address listed on the work order that they’d found in the car. He arrived at the address but was told that no one by that name lived or stayed there. After talking to a neighbor who knew of Harwood, he checked an apartment complex down the road. The name Jack Harwood was not on any of the mailboxes. 

The manager at the apartment thought he knew of a business that Harwood ran with one of his brothers. Warner went there and located Jack’s brother, Harry. Harry didn’t offer up much information, only that Jack had been out of town for a couple of months and that if the detective had any more questions he could contact the family attorney. 

When Warner got through to the attorney, Seymour Markowitz, the man informed the detective that he’d seen Jack Harwood as recently as Friday evening. He wasn’t out of town as Harry had stated.   

At 8:00 pm that evening, Jack Harwood, hearing that the Livonia Police were looking for him, arrived at the Parsons home. He was interviewed by Captain Vorgitch and Detective Warner. 

Harwood told them that he had just been operated on for cancer. He also mentioned that the last time he took Hilda to the hospital was on Wednesday the 22nd. The following day he’d attempted to call Hilda numerous times after 6:30 pm but there was no answer. Police were now able to ascertain that the murders must have taken place at sometime between 4:00 pm when Gladney had spoken with William Parsons and 6:30 pm when Harwood called and got no answer. 

According to information that Detective Warner was receiving, Harwood had three brothers all with extensive criminal records. He was led to believe that they may have been involved with an abortion ring. 

Vorgitch made a note that when they explained to Harwood that the Parsons siblings had been murdered, his attitude was void of emotion. Harwood, in Vorgitch’s opinion, took an abstract attitude to the whole situation. 

In the days and weeks that followed, police followed up on various leads and interviewed a number of neighbors, friends, work colleagues, and even inmates that served time with Parsons. 

Someone had likely known that William Parsons was being let out of prison, the timing of it all was just too big to ignore. Someone knew them well enough to be aware of their German Shepherd. Despite finding himself in trouble frequently, by all accounts, William was a very giving person. It was commonplace for him to loan money to a friend in need or for the sisters to take in a person who was struggling. Detectives had a hard time finding anyone with something negative to say about the family. 

On Thursday, July 30th a Livonia Police lieutenant and detective attended the funeral services for the Parsons siblings. While at Riverside Cemetery in Plymouth, Michigan. The officers took note of all of the license plates and watched for suspicious behavior. Nothing came of it. 

The following day the house, contents and various properties owned by William were turned over to William’s attorney, Leo Schrot. He’d work together with Kenneth Parsons in New York to figure it all out. 

Here we are, now 60 years later, and the case remains one of the Livonia Police Department’s handful of cold cases. 

I went into detective mode while working on this case. It’s hard not to when you see the crime scene photos and read through the stacks of police reports. Any of the key players in the story are either deceased or nearing 100. It will likely never be solved. The house still stands today, obviously updated. I’d be curious to know if the current homeowners know about the house's history. 

So what do you think? For me it comes down to three people. 

Could it have been the weightlifting extortionist from Detroit, Peter Jacobs? William got him locked up in 1949, fifteen years earlier. It’s possible that the two served time together since both were sent to Jackson State Prison. A long time grudge with a heap of revenge? 

Was it Jack Harwood and his troublesome brothers? He’d become close to the sisters while William was in prison. Maybe he waited for the money maker to return home before making his move. They’d also supposedly been a part of an abortion ring. Could William have factored into that in some way and they needed to silence him? 

Or could it have been longtime friend Robert Gladney? Probably not, but he was very talkative with police and quick to point fingers. He knew a lot of very personal details about William and his sisters. He’d been given William’s guns so he was aware that William had no protection. He seemed to insert himself into the investigation a number of times. 

It could have been an anti-abortionist, it could have been the husband of someone William helped get an abortion. He might have talked too much in prison and excited a fellow inmate. Again, we will likely never know. 

If you enjoyed hearing about this case and would like to see photos and news articles then make sure you head over to Curator135.com. I’ve posted many of the crime scene photos to the site, but none of the gruesome ones.

As I closed with in Episode 71, True Crime, to me, isn’t about popularizing the perpetrator. In this case we couldn’t if we wanted to. It’s more about why they became the way they are. For this story it’s about how individuals work together to find answers and how communities react when tragedy hits close to home.   

Let me know what you think. Was there an event that happened in your community that you’d like to learn more about? Nathan@curator135.com And again, visit the website to see photos and information regarding this case. Curator135.com  

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