William Frederick Zimmer in 1966
Friday marks 50th anniversary of heinous Topeka murder
Kansas City man killed Topeka girl with hatchet, escaped death penalty to serve only 15 years
By Tim Hrenchir
The Topeka Capital-Journal
William Frederick Zimmer committed a crime that horrified Topekans, and almost paid for it with his life.
Zimmer came within six days of going to the gallows after he snatched 7-year-old Gladys Johnson in 1964 in North Topeka, then killed her in Wabaunsee County using the hammer head of a hatchet.
“Her skull was described as being ‘like a smashed eggshell,’ ” recalled Robert Hecht, who prosecuted Zimmer as Shawnee County attorney.
Hecht told The Topeka Capital-Journal on Friday his most dramatic memory of the case involved helping remove the body of the African-American girl, who wore a pale, purplish-pink dress, from the dry creek bed in Pottawatomie County where hunters found her.
“I still remember the color of her dress and the condition of her body, and it often becomes very emotional to me,” he said.
Hecht said it also bothers him that Zimmer only served 15 years in prison for the kidnapping and murder before being released in 1979.
A woman who answered the phone Friday at Zimmer’s home in Kansas City, Kan., said he was 94 years old and unable to speak with The Capital-Journal.
The anniversary
This week marks the 50th anniversary of Gladys Johnson’s abduction and murder, which took place on Saturday, Nov. 14, 1964.
Kansas Court of Appeals records show Zimmer, who is white, was living in Kansas City, Kan., and working as an engineer for the Union Pacific Railroad, which also employed Zimmer’s then-wife. They had no children.
Court records said Zimmer got off work about 3:30 p.m. Nov. 13, then did chores and bought ammunition and whiskey before setting off to drive to Marysville, where he had arranged to go hunting.
Zimmer said he stopped that evening in Topeka to get more whiskey, and went to three taverns. His memories of that night were hazy.
The kidnapping
Gladys Johnson’s mother, Betty Michael, last saw her alive about 7:30 a.m. Nov. 14 at their home at 915 N.W. Taylor. Michael then left to go to work at her job at Scotch Cleaners.
Gladys, her 6-year-old brother, Elmer, and her 4-year-old sister, Donnette, walked to their baby-sitter’s house at 1335 N.W. Taylor but found no one there. They waited outdoors.
At 8 a.m., Gladys’ brother rushed over to 1334 N.W. Taylor and told a woman who lived there a man had forced his sister into his car. He asked her to call police.
Court records and newspaper reports show that at 9 a.m. that day, 27-year-old Forbes Air Base Sgt. Charles Guillory was hunting north of Topeka when he saw a car parked in a field.
Guillory approached and spoke to Zimmer. Gladys Johnson was with him. She was whimpering.
Zimmer said everything was OK, but the airman became suspicious and wrote down the car’s license plate number, which he reported to the Shawnee County Sheriff’s Office.
Guillory later told The Topeka Daily Capital, “I thought that something was wrong for a man from another county to be there with a small child of a different race.”
The murder
Zimmer drove west.
Court records and newspaper reports show that between noon and 12:30 p.m., liquor store clerk Marjorie Siebert in Wamego saw a car containing a white man and a small African-American girl park in front of the store. Siebert later testified the girl sat motionless staring straight ahead as the man went into a cafe next door and returned carrying a brown paper bag. As the car left, Siebert noticed it had a Wyandotte County license tag.
Siebert said she no longer saw the girl in the car when it pulled back into the store driveway about 1:15 p.m.
She said the man had blood stains on his right arm and dry clotted blood around his fingernails as he entered and talked with her.
Autopsy results would later show Gladys Johnson had suffered two large crushing blows to the head, which shattered the skull, and four deep wounds across the neck and shoulder.
Any of the blows to the head and shoulder could have proven fatal, the autopsy report said. No evidence of sexual assault was found.
The arrest
Zimmer drove to Marysville, contacted a lady friend and spent Saturday night with her in a motel in Washington.
Authorities, who had been seeking Zimmer since receiving his license plate number from Guillory, arrested him after he visited his brother-in-law, R.D. Harberts, in Marysville on the evening of Sunday, Nov. 15. Officers found some of Gladys Johnson’s blood and hair, as well as the hatchet used to kill her, in the trunk of Zimmer’s car.
Zimmer initially denied having had anything to do with the girl. Then, on Tuesday, Nov. 17, he said he remembered having been in a pasture north of Topeka with a little African-American girl who was crying.
He said he later looked into the trunk and saw the girl’s body, though he couldn’t recall killing her. He said he left the body lying in a rural area.
Hunters found Gladys Johnson’s body on Saturday, Nov. 21, about four miles northwest of St. Marys in Pottawatomie County.
Those who helped remove the body included Hecht, who had been elected earlier that month as Shawnee County attorney and would take office in January 1965.
The trial
Hecht recalled this past week that Zimmer’s wife got Zimmer an attorney, but that attorney then withdrew from his case and instead filed a divorce case that resulted in her securing all their assets.
“So the taxpayers had to pay for his defense,” Hecht said.
He said Zimmer’s 1965 trial on charges of kidnapping and first-degree murder was the first held in what was then the newly constructed Shawnee County Courthouse at 200 S.E. 7th.
Shawnee County District Judge Marion Beatty presided. Zimmer was represented by public defender Elwaine Pomeroy, who was assisted by his brother, Emerson Pomeroy.
The trial included testimony:
■ From a laborer at the state printing plant, who said he was walking home from work between 2 and 2:30 a.m. Nov. 14 in the area where Gladys Johnson was later kidnapped when he saw Zimmer and another man in a car. The laborer said Zimmer offered him a drink from a bottle and asked if he knew where he could find a “colored doll.”
■ From two of Zimmer’s neighbors, who said Zimmer was a good neighbor who had a good reputation.
■ From a Menninger Foundation psychiatrist, who said a complete psychiatric evaluation of Zimmer found no significant mental disorder.
The psychiatrist acknowledged Zimmer had a history of excessive drinking, which could cause amnesia. He said a retrograde-type amnesia could have blotted out the memory of a heinous act.
The all-male jury heard eight days of testimony and one day of final arguments and summations. Jurors then deliberated seven hours before finding Zimmer guilty on April 1, 1965, of first-degree murder and kidnapping. They ordered penalties of life imprisonment for the murder and execution by hanging for the kidnapping.
The Daily Capital indicated Zimmer became the first person sentenced to death in Shawnee County since an 1871 case in which both condemned people subsequently saw their sentences commuted.
The newspaper reported Zimmer, whose mood that day had been calm and at times bordered on levity, blinked as the death sentence was read. Deputies then escorted Zimmer from the courtroom to the Shawnee County Jail, which was then located in the courthouse.
The Daily Capital said: “Walking down the steps from the fourth floor of the Shawnee County Courthouse, Zimmer struck at a television cameraman, knocking his camera aside.”
In a third floor hallway, the newspaper reported, Zimmer ducked his head and stepped behind deputies in an attempt to keep a newspaper photographer from snapping his photo.
The Daily Capital added: “Minutes later, Zimmer broke into sobs when he reached his cell in the Shawnee County Jail. ‘I guess God wanted it this way,’ he told a jailer. “Now all I can do is pray.’ ”
The aftermath
Zimmer was six days away from his scheduled hanging date of Jan. 4, 1968, when he received a stay of execution on Dec. 29, 1967.
The death sentence was then vacated when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that it was unconstitutional to exclude jurors solely on grounds that they were opposed to capital punishment, which had happened in Zimmer’s case.
Zimmer asked for a new trial but Shawnee County District Judge Michael Barbara chose instead to reduce his death sentence to life imprisonment, a move the Kansas Supreme Court affirmed.
The Kansas Adult Authority then granted Zimmer parole on his first chance for eligibility in November 1979, 15 years to the day after he began serving his sentence.
The adult authority said Zimmer had an exemplary record behind bars, while a psychiatric report on him was favorable.
The state discharged Zimmer from parole supervision in 1981.
Hecht said Friday he can still imagine the terror Gladys Johnson must have felt. He said her killing left Topekans outraged that someone came clear from Kansas City, Kan., to abduct, then murder, a 7-year-old playing with her siblings.
“I think a lot of people felt the need after this to keep their children a little closer, maybe build the fence a little higher,” Hecht added. “It’s pretty terrifying for parents to think that such a horrible thing could happen under such innocent circumstances.”
http://cjonline.com/news/2014-11-09/...-topeka-murder
Bookmarks