Clandestine

NURSE FOUND MURDERED IN EL MONTE

Strangulation Death for Attractive Divorced Mother

Scouts and Their Leader Make Grisly Discovery

EL MONTE, JUNE 22—A Boy Scout troop and their leader made a grisly discovery early Sunday morning when returning from an overnight camping trip in the San Gabriel Mountains. When passing Arroyo High School on South Peck Road, one of the Scouts, Danny Johnson, age 12, thought he saw an arm poking out of a line of scrub that runs along the fence on the school's south side. He called this to the attention of his troop leader, James Pleshette, 28, of Sierra Madre. Pleshette went to investigate and discovered the nude body of a woman. He called El Monte police immediately.

Description Broadcast

Police went to the scene and immediately sent out a description of the woman to all Los Angeles TV and radio stations. Response to the broadcast was gratifyingly quick. Mrs. Gaylord Wilder, an El Monte resident, thought the description fit her tenant, Mrs. Marcella Harris, who had been gone since Friday night. Mrs. Wilder was brought to the morgue, where she positively identified the dead woman as Mrs. Harris.

Good Mother

Mrs. Wilder started to sob upon viewing the body. "Oh, God, what a tragedy!" she said. "Marcella was such a good woman. A good mother, devoted to her son." Mrs. Harris, 43, was divorced from her husband, William "Doc" Harris, several years ago. They have a nine-year-old son, who was spending the weekend with his father. When notified of the death, Harris (who has been eliminated as a suspect) said, "I have every hope the police will quickly catch my wife's killer." Nine-year-old Michael, distraught, is now living with his father in Los Angeles. Mrs. Harris worked as head nurse at the Packard-Bell Electronics plant in Santa Monica. Both the El Monte Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department have mounted a full-scale investigation.

I sat and thought, feeling strangely calm, yet engulfed by a prickly sensation when I put down the newspaper. It was too long after the facts, I told myself, too far away, too prosaic a form of murder. Strictly a non sequitur. I didn't want to catch myself up in another logical fallacy.

I needed statistics, and the only person I knew who could furnish them was a crime-buff law clerk in Lorna's firm. I called the office and got him. The receptionist recognized my voice and gave me the cold shoulder, but put me through anyway. After several minutes of amenities, I popped my question: "Bob, what are the statistics on strangulation murders of women, where the killer is not a known intimate of the victim?"

Bob didn't have to think: "Commonplace, but they usually catch the killer fast. Barroom jobs, drunks strangling prostitutes, that kind of thing. Very often the killer is remorseful, confesses, and cops a plea. Is this an academic question, Fred?"

"Yeah, strictly. How about premeditated strangulation murders of women?"

"Including psychopaths?"

"No, presupposing relative sanity on the part of the killer."