And then, in a doff of the hat to Seymour Berkson, the Bomber signed off with the tribute that would both forge and antagonize the bond between journalism and police work forever:
IN ABOUT 3 WEEKS TIME THE N.Y. JOURNAL AMERICAN ACCOMPLISHED WHAT THE AUTHORITIES COULD NOT DO—IN 16 YEARS—YOU STOPPED THE BOMBINGS.
F.P.
XV
ALICE KELLY
THE DELIBERATIONS REGARDING AN APPROPRIATE RESPONSE TO THE Bomber’s revealing letters took place at the home of Seymour Berkson on Sunday, January 20, mere hours after their delivery to the Journal-American. The usual team of editors and police officials was markedly cheered by the bond of trust they had forged with the Bomber, but the question remained as to how best to reel in their prey. They studied and debated the content and tone of the letters and the offers contained in each and, at the behest of Berkson, even consulted with several psychiatrists retained by the newspaper to analyze the psychological implications of the communiqués. Plans were immediately drawn to publish the hand-printed portions of the Bomber’s groundbreaking communication, though, at the insistence of Commissioner Kennedy, the typewritten letter, which contained the date and details of the Bomber’s injury at Con Ed, would be withheld as the investigation continued. Finally, it was agreed that another open letter would be drafted that would combine an empathic appeal and a shared desire for justice with an insistence that the time had come for the Bomber to avail himself of the opportunities that had been offered to him. “You can decide where, how and when to meet us,” the letter coaxed. “Please write us in the same manner as previously, outling [sic] the procedure you would like to follow for the face-to-face meeting . . .”
The overture would never appear in the Journal-American.
As part of the routine investigation of the case, a painstaking search of Con Ed’s employee records had been conducted by detectives of the Bomb Investigation Unit and Con Ed clerks alike in the quest for any match of handwriting or other telltale sign of the Mad Bomber. For several years police investigators had independently combed through thousands of the company’s employment records, and during the first few weeks of January 1957 they had narrowed their search to the “dead” compensation files kept at a Con Ed warehouse on Hester Street. The search had been limited to the records of past employees who were not expected to further protest their claims or have future dealings with the company, and it was completed by detectives on Friday, January 18, just prior to the Journal-American’s receipt of the Bomber’s latest revealing missives. Later that afternoon, a call was placed by police to Con Ed headquarters asking whether the company had in its possession any further employee records of compensation cases. Con Ed’s widely reported and generally accepted version of what followed next would be the subject of conjecture and heated debate for years to come.
According to Con Ed, at the very moment of the police request for further documents, an administrative task force of company employees was, in fact, hard at work in a second-floor suite of the corporate office building on Irving Street, reviewing a set of 1,000 compensation files that had been labeled “troublesome”—many of which were dated prior to 1940. The mysterious files, all of which were subject to the possibility of future claim or contained some express or implied threat, had been originally housed at Hester Street and were transferred to Con Ed’s main facility several years earlier. With the increased level of scrutiny that came as a result of the Bomber’s published reference to an unresolved compensation case, however, the task force, made up of four female clerks and a male supervisor, had been assigned, according to the company, to begin an in-depth review of these compensation files as of Tuesday, January 15.
Con Ed reported that in the late afternoon of Friday, January 18—at perhaps the very moment that the Mad Bomber was composing his latest letters to the Journal-American—one of the task force members, a tall and trim New York woman by the name of Alice Kelly, came across a startling find. A senior office assistant and twenty-five-year employee of Con Ed, Alice had been assigned to review some of the “troublesome” files contained in several cabinets on the second floor of the company offices, and by close of business on Wednesday, January 16, she was, according to her own estimation, about halfway through the task. Called away to other business the following day, she returned to the assigned file drawers on Friday afternoon, where about two hundred of the original one thousand files assigned to the team remained.
At approximately 4:20 p.m., as Alice later recounted, she reached the third file of the second drawer and casually glanced at its outer cover. Immediately, her blue eyes were drawn to the words “injustice” and “permanent disability,” which had been placed at the top of the file in bold italic printing in red ink, as if to key certain corresponding information within.
Armed with a prior sample of the Mad Bomber’s handwriting and a mounting sense of anticipation, she opened the file and began examining its contents. At first she noticed nothing unusual. The file contained the same application forms and claim letters that she had seen countless times in the course of her records search. The employee had commenced work at the Hell Gate powerhouse in 1929, earning $30.12 per week, and was injured in a boiler room accident in 1931. He was separated from payroll in 1932 and he filed a claim for compensation in 1934. The claim was disallowed, subsequently appealed several times, and conclusively denied in 1936. There were several typewritten letters in the file addressed to the compensation board, but none appeared to be overly aggressive or indicative of hostility or violence. As Alice continued her examination of the file, however, she noted that the claimant’s correspondence after 1936 began to carry a distinctly biting style and an oddly familiar stiff and stilted tone. Suddenly she noticed one particular letter that had been forwarded to Con Ed in which the writer stated his intention to retaliate for certain “injustices” that had been inflicted upon him and to “take justice in my own hands.” Instantly, Alice’s mind flashed to the articles she had recently read in the Journal-American, and to the strange expressions used by the Bomber in his now infamous letters. “The word ‘injustices’ sort of remained seared in my mind,” she would later say.
Her pulse began to quicken as the phrases “dastardly deeds” and “treachery” leapt off the pages of several other letters, and with her widened eyes still firmly fixed on these telltale clues she shrieked to the other members of her team, “I think we have it!” The women gathered around and eagerly flipped through the various letters in the file, quickly agreeing on the significance of the find. As she nervously turned the elusive file over to her supervisor, Alice Kelly barely noticed the typewritten name and address on the lip of the folder: “Metesky, George P., 17 Fourth Street, Waterbury, Connecticut.”
Police officials would doubt every word of Con Ed’s account.
George Metesky had seriously considered turning himself in. He had purposefully provided personal details to the Journal-American that he knew might lead to his apprehension, and the inner rage that had goaded him for nearly two decades had finally found an outlet. Though his health was again deteriorating—he claimed in one of his recent letters that he spent nearly sixteen hours of each day in bed—he had been energized and even purified by his public dialogue with Seymour Berkson. When he began his violent rampage against Con Ed, he had never intended for it to stop. Indeed, with the ravages of his chronic illness, he never expected to live as long as he had. But finally the relevant parts of his story had begun to come out, and the “kind attitude of the Police Commissioner,” as he noted in his latest communication, had provided him with the cathartic gift of an empathetic ear. And now, a milder George Metesky simply figured it was over.
Thoughts of surrender, however, came with many complications and Metesky was justifiably concerned about what an arrest would do to his sisters. “WHAT ABOUT MY PEOPLE—WHO HOUSED ME— FED ME—CLOTHED ME—AND DID EVERYTHING THEY COULD—AND STILL DO—TO SUSTAIN MY LIFE?” his note had questioned. “I WOULD NOT SELL MY PEOPLE OUT FOR
ALL [THE] MONEY IN N.Y.C.” “Were I alone,” the typewritten companion letter assured, “I would accept what is now offered me without a moments delay.” Perhaps, thought Metesky, if he sought the refuge of his friends at the Journal, his family could be protected and he would finally be given the opportunity to air the full details of his grievances against Con Ed. Conceivably, he mused, a surrender could be the only way for his nemesis to be brought to justice.
As directed, when dealing with a file of interest, Herbert Schrank, the Con Ed task force supervisor, promptly telephoned the presiding detective at the Hester Street warehouse and informed him of the Metesky file purportedly unearthed by Alice Kelly. He read aloud each of the relevant letters and provided the name and address listed on the folder, and though the information appeared to be of interest to the detective, he had no confirmation that the discovery was of any real value. It would be several hours before receipt of the Bomber’s most recent dispatches containing the stunning revelation of the injury date, and thus there was no immediate suggestion that the file necessarily contained any vital clues. The supervisor was simply thanked for his good work and told that someone would come by to pick up the file.
On the following morning, Saturday, January 19, detectives from the New York City Bomb Investigation Unit, acting on the information provided by Herbert Schrank, forwarded a teletype query to the Waterbury Police Department, requesting a “discreet check” on George Metesky of 17 Fourth Street in Waterbury. At the same time a message was forwarded to the Connecticut State Motor Vehicle Bureau in Hartford requesting a photostatic copy of any automobile registration held by Metesky. At first, the local police could find no public record of their suspect. The town clerk’s office indicated a registered owner of 17 Fourth Street by the name of George Milauskas, however, and Captain Ernest Pakul decided that a further check was warranted. Pakul, a veteran officer of the Waterbury Police Department and a longtime resident of the Brass City, was familiar with the tousled neighborhood along the Naugatuck River, and he knew that it was not uncommon for the first-and second-generation immigrant families in the area to informally adopt undocumented or unofficial surnames without reporting the change to local authorities. Pakul thought that perhaps the name “Milauskas” had, at some point, been informally changed to “Metesky,” and, though he had not been informed by New York Police of the purpose for their requested check, he sent one of his detectives into the area to discreetly investigate further. Under the pretext of a fact-finding mission in connection with an automobile accident, the officer conducted a detailed canvassing of the neighborhood in a cloaked effort to uncover as much information as possible about 17 Fourth Street and its occupants.
At 4:37 that afternoon Captain Pakul forwarded a detailed teletype reply to the New York City Police Department, confirming that a well-proportioned, chronically ill, unmarried man by the name of George P. Metesky, a/k/a George P. Milauskas, described by neighbors as “strange” and “aloof,” did, in fact, reside alone with his two sisters at 17 Fourth Street, Waterbury, Connecticut. Unsure of the significance of his officer’s findings, Pakul promised to keep the property under surveillance.
That Saturday night at approximately eight o’clock, the Bomber’s letters arrived at the Journal-American city desk, and though Commissioner Kennedy and his immediate circle was directly advised of the important revelations contained in the letters, the team had previously agreed upon a protective posture of silence to thwart any unauthorized publication of the sensitive disclosures. The pivotal date of injury that could, in the right hands, solve the case thus remained haplessly concealed for the next thirty-six hours.
Whether the result of overcautious restraint or simple gaffe, a series of investigative missteps had conspired against the police. Commissioner Kennedy would later protest that the Metesky file was simply “one of a number” of promising leads the police had been working on, but he knew that the department’s failure to immediately retrieve the record would be viewed as a monumental blunder at the pinnacle of a long and frustrating investigation. Though a full explanation was never formally provided, it is evident that after his meeting with the Journal-American editors on Sunday, January 20, either Kennedy had failed to communicate to his detectives the critical information contained in the Bomber’s letters or, armed with such information, the detectives had failed to appreciate the need to match it to the promising Con Ed file. Either way, two separate and decisive pieces of evidence that together would have likely lead to an arrest remained overlooked for the better part of that cold winter weekend.
At 9:00 a.m. on Monday, January 21, Detective Bertram Scott was finally directed to take the ten-minute ride from police headquarters to the Irving Street offices of Con Ed to retrieve the compensation file of one George P. Metesky. In the patrol car, Detective Scott read through the file with mounting interest and, whether he was aware at that time of the September 5, 1931, date of Metesky’s fateful injury or he learned of it shortly thereafter, Scott hurriedly put a call into his commanding officer, Deputy Chief Inspector Edward Byrnes, and exclaimed, “This sounds an awful lot like our man.”
XVI
“THE PRICE OF PEACE”
THOUGH DWIGHT DAVID EISENHOWER HAD BEEN ACCUSED OF HAVING A fervent belief in a “very vague religion,” he would follow conviction and perhaps a modicum of political judgment in holding the events of his second inauguration not on Sunday, January 20, as mandated by the twentieth amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but on the following day so as not to offend the public conscience. The official oath of office had been administered on Sunday morning in a quiet ceremony in the East Room of the White House, but the formal observance at the U.S. Capitol would be delayed so as not to run afoul of the traditional day of rest.
To a gathering of more than 750,000 citizens amassed before the East Portico on January 21, 1957, Eisenhower warned that “[n]ew forces . . . stir across the earth, with power to bring, by their fate, great good or great evil to the free world’s future.” With hope and determination, he proclaimed, “. . . we can help to heal this divided world. Thus may the nations cease to live in trembling before the menace of force. Thus may the weight of fear and the weight of arms be taken from the burdened shoulders of mankind.” And in a concluding appeal to the better angels of mankind, the thirty-fourth president implored, “May the turbulence of our age yield to a true time of peace, when men and nations shall share a life that honors the dignity of each, the brotherhood of all.”
As President Eisenhower boldly implored the nation to grant his clarion “Price of Peace,” as the speech was titled, a chilling fog had begun to gather along the inclines of the Naugatuck Valley and into the decaying crevices of Waterbury, Connecticut.
By Monday morning, the connections between the injury date contained in the Bomber’s letters and the Con Ed file on George Metesky had been made. The description compiled by Waterbury police had squared closely with the profile drawn by Dr. Brussel, and the evidence finally seemed to point to one suspect.
At 3:00 p.m. the first of several waves of New York bomb squad detectives began their trek out of the city and into Waterbury’s Brooklyn district. Under the direction of Chief Edward Byrnes, detectives Michael Lynch, Richard Rowan, Edward Lehane, and James Martin converged upon the Waterbury Police Department and began compiling further evidence on George Metesky. In conjunction with local officers, the New York detectives searched city directories to again confirm Metesky’s address, checked motor vehicle bureau records for possible handwriting samples, and began discussion on the logistics of a possible confrontation and arrest. As evening approached, the detectives drove to the Fourth Street neighborhood to case the area and plan their approach.
Back at the Waterbury Police headquarters, Captain Pakul had been conducting his own investigation. He called a relative who lived across the street from Metesky, and, though he had been interviewed earlier in the day by another officer, Pakul asked him to once again describe his neighbor. “Queer,” came
the response. The relative further recommended that Pakul consult with a former tenant in the Metesky home—Miles Kelly—if he needed further verification. Pakul telephoned Kelly and, together with the four New York detectives, went to his home to conduct an interview. Kelly, recollecting his prior rancorous dealings with Metesky, portrayed the man as “unstable” and described the strange and vindictive behavior that began in 1942 with Metesky’s enlistment rejection at the draft board and continued through their time at the Waterbury Tool Company. Kelly had endured complaint after bitter complaint from Metesky to the company owners and had been the subject of letters to the draft board and even the president of the United States, petitioning for Kelly’s induction into the armed service. Now, as Kelly huddled with the officers and learned of Metesky’s possible involvement in the Mad Bomber case, he was only too pleased to draw a diagram of the Metesky home for the men.
By the time the group returned to Waterbury headquarters, there had been broad agreement that the threshold probable cause requirements for a search warrant had been met, and Captain Pakul telephoned the local district attorney and presiding judge, informing both of the evolving state of the investigation. By 10:30 p.m., the warrant had been executed and Detective Lynch telephoned Chief Byrnes for authorization to proceed. Byrnes informed the detective that on the basis of a preliminary comparison of handwriting conducted earlier that day, a match of George Metesky appeared to be “a good bet.”
The Mad Bomber of New York Page 16