Retired Officer Identifies Murder Suspect

A retired El Segundo police officer has identified a South Carolina suspect as the man he glimpsed 45 years ago moments before two fellow officers were shot to death, according to records obtained Tuesday.

The suspect’s handwriting has also tied him to the crime, records show.

In one of the oldest unsolved killings in Los Angeles County, Gerald F. Mason, 69, was charged last month with killing Officers Milton Curtis and Richard Phillips. The arrest came after county sheriff’s investigators used a new FBI fingerprint database to link a print from the crime scene to the retired gas station owner.

Mason is charged with robbing four teenagers at gunpoint in Hawthorne and raping one of them on the night of July 21, 1957. Authorities believe he was fleeing from that incident in a stolen car when the two El Segundo officers pulled him over for running a red light. Both were shot to death.

In recent months, investigators showed retired El Segundo Police Officer Charles Porter a 1956 photo of Mason. Porter, 81, had been called as backup that night when the two El Segundo officers stopped the car. Seeing that everything appeared all right, Porter left. The officers were killed afterward.

Porter, according to a January search warrant affidavit obtained by The Times, identified Mason from among eight similar photos.

On another front in the investigation, Mason’s handwriting has been linked to the Harrington & Richardson .22-caliber revolver, determined by the sheriff’s crime laboratory to be the murder weapon.

The gun, which was found in a Manhattan Beach backyard, was traced in 1960 to a Shreveport, La., Sears store where the buyer had given his name as G.D. Wilson and a fictitious Miami address. A day earlier, at a YMCA two blocks away, the guest registry had been signed by a George D. Wilson, who listed a different fictitious address, the affidavit says.

Recently, investigators took handwriting samples from Mason’s Social Security records. “A preliminary examination of the [records] compared to the guest from the YMCA, revealed a match between the two writings, indicating George Mason wrote the name George D. Wilson on the registry,” the affidavit states.

That document says investigators have DNA evidence from the crime scene that they are comparing with swabs taken from Mason’s mouth. Results are pending.

The recent developments revived an investigation that hit a dead-end four decades ago.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, investigators launched an intense but fruitless search. The evidence was limited, however, and hundreds of potential suspects were detained and eventually freed.

In 1960, a Manhattan Beach resident called police to report the discovery of two watches and the chrome-plated revolver behind his house. The robbery victims identified the stolen watches, and the Sheriff’s Department crime lab examined the gun.

Sheriff’s investigators questioned numerous people who were identified as, or used the name, George D. Wilson. They were all cleared through photos as well as handwriting and fingerprint comparisons.

Last September, El Segundo police received a tip about a possible suspect. Police investigators, with help from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, checked out the information. Although the tip was a dead end, it revived the case because authorities decided to run the print through the new national fingerprint data and got a match. The prints matched those of Mason, recorded when he was arrested for burglary in 1956.

After identifying Mason as a suspect, investigators obtained handwriting samples from public records matched to the YMCA ledger.

The court documents also offer a more detailed account of the events of July 21, 1957.

About midnight that evening, two teenage couples were parked in a lover’s lane on Van Ness Avenue in Hawthorne between Imperial Highway and El Segundo Boulevard when they were confronted by a man with a chrome-plated revolver, the court documents say.

The teenagers were ordered to pay attention, and told that they were being robbed. The man then said, “All I want is your money. I won’t hurt you.”

Using shirts taken off the two boys, the attacker bound their hands behind their backs. He used adhesive tape to cover the teenagers’ eyes and mouths.

The boys were forced to lie on the rear floorboards of the car, according to the affidavit. One of the girls was ordered to lie on the backseat.

After driving a short distance, the attacker parked the vehicle and sexually assaulted the other girl, who was in the front seat.

The suspect stole two wristwatches and two billfolds, including one containing $15 to $20, the document said. Before abandoning them in the desolate area, he ordered the teenagers out of the car, removed their bindings and forced them to disrobe.

Less than two hours later, the man ran a red light and was pulled over by Officers Curtis and Phillips at Rosecrans Avenue and Sepulveda Boulevard about 1:25 a.m., the warrant says.

It seemed like a routine traffic stop, records show. The officers radioed for a background check on the car, and a cruiser with backup officers arrived, only to be told the situation was under control. Less than a minute later, the other officers heard a radio call for an ambulance at the scene of the stop.

They returned to find Phillips gravely wounded from three gunshots to the back, leaning into the passenger’s side of his squad car. Curtis was hit with three shots in the upper torso. He was found lying on the front seat.

The stolen car was discovered four blocks from the shooting, the rear pierced by three bullets fired by Phillips as the man fled.

After years of false leads, Porter -- one of the few people connected to the case still alive -- said he was elated that the case appears to be solved. “It’s very emotional for me,” said Porter, who fingerprinted more than 100 people during his 27 years on the job. “It’s been on my mind for 45 years. I have to relive it every day.”