The Reader’s Digest Murder Case, the Little Kid and a Great Career

In 1951 the Reader’s Digest published an article describing the outstanding investigation conducted

by the members of New York State Police’s Troop K in solving the murder of a Reader’s Digest

employee.

Unlike today’s television cop shows, the case was solved without the help of cellular telephone

records, surveillance videos, facial recognition software, trace DNA evidence and all the other 21st

Century forensic trappings . It’s a story about good old fashion police work: attention to detail,

leaving no stone unturned, following every lead to its conclusion no matter how insignificant it might

appear and, sometimes, a few good hunches coupled with a dose of luck.

The Digest’s account re-surfaced after almost seven decades because of the curiosity of a retired

trooper. His inquiry not only generated interest in the case among state police history buffs, but also

revealed a series of personal co-incidences which I’d never given much thought to before.

Read the Digest’s story and then I’ll explain what I mean.

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(A minor correction to the Digest’s story. Captain Glasheen was the Troop Commander of Troop K. There was and

is no “New York State Bureau of Criminal Investigation”. The “Bureau of Criminal Investigation” was and is the

detective arm of the New York State Police. J. J. Quinn was the “District Inspector” of Troop K, a position which is

analogous to today’s “Troop BCI Captain”. Bottom line: Captain Glasheen was the boss.)

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As to why this case recently resurfaced: A fellow state police retiree, Don Pitcher, and his wife were

on an evening golf cart cruise around their Florida retirement community when they encountered a

new neighbor who also turned out to be a transplant from the Hudson Valley. When the guy

mentioned that he had worked at the Reader’s Digest Headquarters in Chappaqua, Don had a vague

recollection about a high profile state police investigation involving the Digest, but couldn’t

remember the details. The new neighbor had never heard of the case and could offer no help.

Pitch was now on a mission. When his internet search for information came up empty he resorted

to Plan B and turned to his primary source of arcane and useless state police information; he sent me

an email. I was traveling at the time, so I couldn’t dive into my state police historical files for a

detailed answer. Nevertheless, and perhaps surprisingly to him, I could provide Don with a fair

amount of information about his inquiry:

Pitch,

I believe you’re thinking of a robbery/homicide of a courier or couriers carrying money for the

Digest. Chappaqua area. The last name of one of the Digest employees was W aterbury.

SP Hawthorne case. Bob Sweeney was one of the investigators. Trial in W hite Plains

around 1950.

It might seem that for an “out of the blue” inquiry, I had a pretty decent handle on a seventy year old

case. That’s because, unknowingly, Don had provided me with an easy question.

Why would I remember a number of details about a case which occurred when I was five years old?

For starters, I grew up on a farm located just outside the Village of Pleasantville. The head farm

hand (who was probably the only farm hand - suburbia was encroaching and the farm was shrinking)

was an elderly gentleman named Elmer Waterbury. Elmer was the grandfather of William

Waterbury, the driver of the Reader’s Digest van. Our family knew the Waterbury family well.

When the trial took place in 1950 my older brother Tom took me to the courthouse in White Plains

so we could watch William testify. The court officers quickly decided that this little kid was far too

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young to hear such gruesome testimony and we didn’t get in, but the visit to the courthouse left a

lasting impression.

As for being familiar with the location of the robbery and of Troop K headquarters, our house was

situated about four miles south of the Reader’s Digest headquarters and about the same distance

north of Troop K Headquarters.

Both buildings were well known Westchester County landmarks, but not necessarily for a little kid.

My family rarely drove in the direction of the Reader’s Digest building so I had probably never seen

it, but one day my oldest brother Pete and I were en route to the hospital in Mount Kisco where our

mother was a patient. He failed to see a stopped car making a left hand turn into the Digest’s

driveway and rear-ended it. Since 1934 Ford coupes were a little light in the seatbelt and safety glass

departments, I went through the windshield. We did get to visit our mother, but only after a rather

comprehensive tour of the emergency room. Consequently I have a lasting memory of the exact

location where the robbery occurred.

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Unlike the Digest building,

we drove past Troop K

headquarters quite often on

the way to or from White

Plains. Seeing a “for real”

castle made quite an

impression on a little kid.

Who would have guessed that nineteen

years after the Reader’s Digest

investigation I would report to Troop

K as a transferee from Troop C and

would spend my first night as a freshly

minted K Trooper bunking in the third

floor dormitory of the castle I had

wondered about since I was a little

kid?

As for the personnel assigned to the Reader’s Digest investigation, those who are students of Troop

K History will quickly realize that Captain Glasheen had truly assigned his “A Team” to the Reader’s

Digest investigation. Many would become state police legends. During their careers five of them,

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Joe Sayers, John Manopoly, John Quinn, Bob Sweeney and Richard Barber would attain the rank

of lieutenant or higher at a time when there were fewer than forty commissioned officers statewide.

I would have the good fortune to meet two of these men during the period when our respective

careers overlapped; one of them for only a moment and the other for several years.

John J. Quinn enlisted in the state police in 1924 and retired forty-five years later, something that

isn’t even possible with today’s mandatary retirement age. He was the most senior member of the

state police who was still on the job when our academy class enlisted in 1966.

My favorite photograph of J. J. Quinn was taken at the scene of a truck/train accident in 1931. He

already had seven years on the job and had made corporal. (He’s the guy with the notebook.) Why

is it a favorite? Every time I look at the obvious vintage of the truck I marvel “This guy and I were

once on the job at the same time?”

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Our careers overlapped for three years. There may have been some occasions when we were in the

same place at the same time, like maybe a funeral detail or an academy graduation, but we only

came face-to-face one time. That’s probably a good thing since he was the Deputy Chief Inspector

at the time and one doesn’t normally want to have a face-to-face encounter with the DCI when one

only has three years on the job. As it was, the encounter was pretty innocuous - but memorable just

the same.

In the summer of 1969 I was assigned to the Middletown Barracks Patrol. It was a perfect summer

day and I was working the B line (7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.). I went out to the backyard to pick up my

assigned troop car and brought it around to the rear entrance of the main lobby to pick up some

relays, then ran through the usual pre-patrol check list: a good supply of investigative and accident

reports (remember those 11" by 17" aluminum folders?), a full bin of flares, first aid kit and fire

extinguisher full, all that other junk that’s supposed to be in the trunk appears to be there, lights work

and, finally, the horn and siren. I hit the horn ring (remember them?), then flipped the horn/siren

toggle switch and hit the ring again. The siren worked. It didn’t stop working. I flipped the switch

a few times, hit the horn ring a few times, tried the ignition switch and then beat on the steering

column, all to no avail. In those days the sirens were mechanical, not electronic like today where

you could probably take out a fuse or disconnect a tiny wire.

I popped the hood to get at the siren, which was mounted on the left fender liner. It was a somewhat

smaller version of the type you sometimes see on fire trucks today, an electric motor similar to a

starter motor with a siren assembly bolted to the front. I beat on the motor and the attached solenoid

with my nightstick. Nothing. Did I mention that it was really loud under the hood? The whole thing

was wired with industrial strength cable - you weren’t ripping these wires out by hand or cutting

through them with your pocket knife. Resigned to the fact that tools would be needed, I ran into the

barracks to get the station tool box. When I came back outside an older guy wearing pajamas,

slippers and a robe came wandering out of a side door of the barracks to see what was causing all

the racket.

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It was Deputy Chief Inspector Quinn, who was apparently occupying one of the officer’s bedrooms

in the back. Knowing that someone from inspection is in the troop for more than a passing visit is

on a need to know basis. The only reason I would need to know would be if he wanted his car

washed. Apparently he didn’t.

I saluted him and went to work on the electrical terminals with a crescent wrench as he supervised.

I’m pretty sure that was the only time in my life I ever saluted a guy wearing pajamas. Hell, I didn’t

even know anyone who owned pajamas - the standard sack time attire in the barracks was skivvies

and a tee shirt.

Eventually he lost interest and wandered back to the barracks, only to find the door he had come out

of could only be opened from the inside, so he had to enter though the main lobby amidst the civilian

employees who were arriving for work, probably wondering “who the hell is this guy and why is he

wandering around our building?”

As I said, not a noteworthy meeting, but memorable just the same.

The other member of the Reader’s Digest

investigative team whose career overlapped

mine was Assistant Deputy Superintendent

Bob Sweeney. He came on the job in 1940,

left to serve in World War Two and then

returned in 1946.

This is the only photograph I could come up

with. I would guess that it dates back to his

days in the Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

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Unlike my one time interaction with Deputy Chief Quinn, there were several periods when I was in

Bob Sweeney’s chain of command and even times when we socialized after work.

Then Captain Sweeney was the night captain when I was first assigned to Troop K. On the front seat

of his car he had a loose leaf binder listing personal information about every member of the troop

including the names of everyone's wife, kids and pets. When he pulled up in front of a barracks at

2 a.m., he would look though the window and see who was on the desk, then check the book for

pertinent information before entering the station and asking about the family. Some of the guys

made jokes about it, but, as a young trooper with barely a year on, I was pretty impressed that he

even knew who I was.

A senior trooper told of a time that then Lieutenant Sweeney stopped to talk to him on a particularly

hot summer day and mentioned that a bit earlier the lieutenant had been driving through a nearby

village when he saw a village patrolman riding his motorcycle with his tie undone and his sleeves

rolled up. He went on to say how unprofessional it looked. The trooper knew there it wasn’t a

village patrolman riding a motorcycle - it had been him. But he got the message. Many supervisors

of that era wouldn’t have handled it quite the same way.

Several years later there were many times when groups of my contemporaries and I would be billeted

at the Academy for weeks or months at a time, either as instructors or while assigned to a special

detail of some kind. If we were assigned to an especially lengthy detail, then Lieutenant Colonel

Sweeney would stop by two or three times a week to inquire as to what we were doing, how our

families were, whatever.

On one such occasion as he was passing through, he looked at the blackboard in our room. It was

covered with assorted notations related to the project de jour and - in one corner - the vestiges of the

Daily Jumble, the letters D U T A I. (We copied the Jumble clues on the blackboard each morning

so each of us could work on it; in case you're trying to figure it out, the word turned out to be

"audit".)

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The colonel inquired as to what Dutai meant. As solicitous of our well being as he was, none of us

thought he would appreciate our working on such frivolous things as the Jumble when we were

supposed to be hard at work.

One of the guys was a quick thinker. "It's our motto, sir. We thought that our detail needed a motto,

so we adopted the motto of the Pretorian Guard. 'Dutai'. It means 'Duty'."

Colonel Sweeney's eyes welled up with tears. He was genuinely overcome. "God, where do we get

men like these. We take you away from your loved ones and all you can think of is duty."

Thereafter, Colonel Sweeney would occasionally run into us in the noon chow line. He would

glance furtively to the left and right to see that we weren't being observed, then strike his heart with

his right fist, wink and proclaim "Dutai". We felt kind of bad about putting something over on such

a nice guy - but not so bad we ‘fessed up.

When we were billeted at the Academy we would retire to the gymnasium after evening chow for

an evening of one-wall racquetball and were often joined by then Colonel Sweeney and other

personnel from Division Headquarters. Colonel Sweeney was an outstanding athlete and could hold

his own despite being twenty or thirty years older than the rest of us. (There were also times when

he displayed extraordinary vision and was able to discern, despite what others thought they saw, that

a particular shot was either in-bounds or out, depending on who hit it. Hey, it’s good to be the king.)

As I looked back over the Digest case and the many coincidental connections it had to my childhood

and to my career, there was one other coincidence which still seems unbelievable...........

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................some thirty two years after

Captain Glasheen, the 9 and longestth

serving Troop K Commander (1944 -

1955), was promoted and transferred to

Division Headquarters ........

....... I would once again be transferred

to Troop K, this time as the 22 Troopnd

Commander.

It was a great ride.

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