Suspect Arrested in ’78 Death of Bob Crane

Nearly 14 years after “Hogan’s Heroes” star Bob Crane was bludgeoned to death in Arizona, authorities there on Monday announced the arrest of a longtime suspect in the case, which has frustrated investigators and fueled lurid speculation.

Citing new and re-examined evidence, officials in Phoenix said John Henry Carpenter, 64, was arrested by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies on his way to work in Carson. Carpenter, who lives in an undisclosed South Bay community, was charged with first-degree murder after experts said they had linked him to the case through blood and tissue samples.

Police say the electronics worker visited the TV actor in Scottsdale, Ariz., in the days before Crane’s death. Carpenter has long been under scrutiny in connection with the case, but two previous prosecuting attorneys have declined to file charges against him and he has consistently maintained his innocence.

Last week, however, Maricopa County (Arizona) Atty. Richard Romley filed the murder charge after experts said blood and tissue found in Carpenter’s rental car and on Crane’s pillowcase came from the same, fatal blow.

“This is an important statement to the community that homicides are never closed, that we in law enforcement will always aggressively pursue those who break the law,” Romley said during a crowded news conference in his Phoenix office.

Crane, the wisecracking lead of the 1960s sitcom about American prisoners of war, died on June 29, 1978, apparently killed as he slept in his Scottsdale apartment.

The divorced, 49-year-old actor was in town appearing at a local dinner theater.

The Arizona Republic reported earlier this year that Crane and Carpenter met in the 1960s, when Carpenter sold Crane some video equipment. The newspaper quoted friends of Crane who described him as an avid collector of pornography who sometimes taped his own sexual encounters with women.

In the days before the murder, authorities said, Carpenter visited Crane in Scottsdale, where the two had been been seen together socializing with women. Witnesses also told police they had seen the men arguing.

On the day Crane’s body was found, Carpenter checked out of his hotel about 8 a.m. in a “state of anxiety” and flew to Los Angeles, according to a police affidavit filed in Arizona.

Within days, police seized the 1978 Chrysler Cordoba that Carpenter had rented in Scottsdale. Blood smears inside the front passenger door were found to be Type B--the same as Crane’s.

Also found near the blood smears was a fragment of tissue. The only identifiable fingerprints in the car were on the front passenger door and were Carpenter’s, the affidavit says.

But it was not until 1990--when a special panel formed by Romley to review unsolved crimes took a fresh look at the evidence--that the case against Carpenter began to take shape. In August, 1990, investigators for the first time found human tissue fragments on Crane’s pillowcase, the affidavit said.

Those fragments led investigators back to old photographs of blood smears found in the rental car. Investigators said their re-examination turned photographic evidence of human tissue in the car similar to that found on the pillow case, the affidavit says.

In another new development, authorities now say a Phoenix police criminalist found that Crane likely was killed with a camera tripod--not a crowbar, as originally believed. Investigators then determined that Crane owned two tripods but only one was recovered in his apartment after his death.

Romley declined to comment on why it had taken so long to charge Carpenter.

Carpenter’s attorney, Gary Fleischman of Beverly Hills, reiterated Monday that his client has been hounded for 14 years. He said Romley’s two predecessors declined to file charges against Carpenter, and said the delay has precluded Carpenter from getting a fair trial.

“I think there was a rush to judgment originally because he was there and they overlooked dozens of other leads,” Fleischman said.

“How the flesh sample was overlooked 14 years ago is beyond me,” he said.

Carpenter made a brief appearance in Los Angeles Municipal Court on Monday, where Fleischman asked that an extradition hearing be postponed. Judge William R. Chidsey Jr. scheduled the hearing for July 1 and ordered Carpenter held in the County Jail without bail.

Fleischman said later it was unlikely that Carpenter would fight Arizona’s extradition request, but said he wanted time to negotiate bail with prosecutors there.

Carpenter’s wife, Diana, who was in court Monday, nervously twisted the strap of her pocketbook during the proceeding. After the hearing, she would not comment and rushed from the courtroom, saying, “Leave me alone!”

Times staff writer Berger reported in Los Angeles; free-lance writer Laughlin reported from Phoenix. Times staff writer Jim Newton also contributed to this story.