Bob Crane

Case background and investigation

Bob Crane was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1928 and worked as a radio host before starring as Colonel Robert Hogan in the CBS comedy Hogan's Heroes from 1965 to 1971. In June 1978 he was in Scottsdale, Arizona, appearing in the play Beginner's Luck at the Windmill Dinner Theatre and living at the Winfield Apartments.

According to a 1993 Phoenix New Times investigation, actress Victoria Berry, who was in the play with him, went to the apartment at about 2 p.m. on June 29, 1978, for an appointment. No one answered, the door was unlocked, and she found a body in the bed with an electrical cord tied around the neck. The victim was identified as Crane. He had been struck on the head with a heavy object. Investigators came to believe the weapon was a camera tripod, but no weapon was ever recovered.

Police attention turned to John Henry Carpenter, a video equipment salesman and friend of Crane who had been in the theatre audience the night before and had left with him after the show. Carpenter flew home to Los Angeles on the morning of June 29 and telephoned the apartment twice that afternoon while officers were there, New Times reported. He told police he had been with Crane until the early morning hours. Blood of Crane's type was found on the door of Carpenter's rental car, but testing available in 1978 could not go further, and the county attorney declined to file charges.

The case was re-examined around 1990, and Carpenter was arrested and charged with murder in June 1992. At trial in 1994 the defense emphasized that the evidence was circumstantial, that no weapon had been found and that evidence had been handled poorly. The jury acquitted him. Carpenter maintained his innocence until his death in 1998.

In November 2016, Phoenix television journalist John Hook announced the results of new DNA testing he had arranged on the surviving blood samples from the rental car. According to CNN and Fox News, the tests produced two profiles: one from an unidentified man and one partial profile too degraded to interpret. Neither was Crane's. Carpenter's trial lawyer said the result vindicated his client.

USA Today reported that Hook cautioned against treating the result as conclusive in either direction. No one else has been charged, and the killing remains unsolved.