By USA Today Network via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tDubbed the \u201cHilltop Murder,\u201d the 1945 killing of Joseph B. Campbell at his Millcreek home was \u201cone of Erie County\u2019s most atrocious crimes,\u201d according to the Erie Daily Times.<\/p>\n
A bar of hotel soap led police to the killers of a retired Erie industrialist in 1945.<\/p>\n
Dubbed the \u201cHilltop Murder\u201d in a national \u201cGang Busters\u201d radio episode, the killing of Joseph B. Campbell at his Millcreek home was \u201cone of Erie County\u2019s most atrocious crimes,\u201d according to the Erie Daily Times.<\/p>\n
Two men confessed to the murder and were executed in March 1946. They had lobbied for life sentences or to be used as atomic testing \u201cguinea pigs\u201d instead.<\/p>\n
The crime scene<\/p>\n
Campbell, 73, lived alone on a small farm on the Waterford Pike, now upper Peach Street, \u201con a knoll overlooking the valley which embraces Kearsarge and the flying field nearby,\u201d the Erie Daily Times reported on Aug. 6, 1945. The \u201cflying field\u201d was on farmland now occupied by the Millcreek Mall.<\/p>\n
Campbell was an engineer with Erie City Iron Works and Hays Manufacturing before founding Campbell Brass Works at West 16th and Cascade streets. He also built the former 10-story Ariel Building at East Eighth and State streets and a mansion downtown.<\/p>\n
He later lived full-time in the Millcreek farmhouse that he had built as a summer home in 1909.<\/p>\n
Campbell\u2019s bloodied and bound body was found in the farmhouse kitchen by daughter Ruth Van Cleve on Aug. 5, 1945.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was too shocked even to cry out,\u201d Van Cleve said later. \u201cI was stunned. I ran to neighbors. I even forgot about calling the police.\u201d<\/p>\n
Campbell had been beaten, his skull fractured in two places, according to autopsy results.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe crime was one of the most brutal in the history of the state police,\u201d the Erie Times-News reported on Aug. 6.<\/p>\n
Campbell\u2019s car, revolver and about $65 in cash were missing.<\/p>\n
The telltale soap<\/p>\n
The first major break in \u201cone of the largest manhunts in the history of Erie County\u201d came days later when Campbell\u2019s car was found abandoned near Canton, Ohio, with a Michigan license plate on it. Campbell\u2019s Pennsylvania plate and matchbooks advertising Michigan businesses were found inside the car.<\/p>\n
Erie investigators went to Canton and found a bar of soap imprinted with the name of the Republic Hotel in Bay City, Michigan, in bushes near the car. In Bay City, the hotel register listed the names of two Williamsport, Pennsylvania, men who had stayed there after Campbell\u2019s murder.<\/p>\n
John \u201cJack\u201d West, 27, and Robert \u201cBob\u201d Pepperman, 29, had both been in and out of juvenile detention facilities, jails and prisons since age 14. They were taken into custody in Williamsport and quickly confessed to robbing and killing Campbell.<\/p>\n
The \u201chardened and shifty-eyed ex-convicts\u201d repeated their confessions for reporters when they were brought to Erie on Aug. 20. They re-enacted the crime in Campbell\u2019s home the following day.<\/p>\n
Repaying kindness with killing<\/p>\n
Three days before the murder, West and Pepperman told Campbell that they were hitchhiking to Pittsburgh and were hungry, according to their confessions.<\/p>\n
Campbell gave them sandwiches and berries that they ate outside.<\/p>\n
The men returned Aug. 1, 1945, waiting near the home until dark. They then knocked on the door and said they\u2019d lost a fountain pen on the property. Campbell got a flashlight to help in the search and was attacked when he returned to the door.<\/p>\n
He \u201cput up a hell of a fight,\u201d Pepperman said.<\/p>\n
The robbers ransacked upstairs bedrooms and took the cash, revolver and suits that they later wore in place of their bloodstained clothing. They drove Campbell\u2019s car to Canada, crossed back into the U.S. at Detroit and made their way through Michigan and Ohio before returning home to Williamsport.<\/p>\n
West and Pepperman pleaded guilty following their indictment on the murder charge on Aug. 31.<\/p>\n
\u2018Path of evil\u2019<\/p>\n
Erie County District Attorney Burton Laub successfully argued that Campbell\u2019s killing, during the course of a robbery, was first-degree murder, punishable by death.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have chosen the path of evil as against the path of decency,\u201d Laub said of the killers, and committed \u201cone of the most atrocious and cold blooded crimes in the history of our county.\u201d<\/p>\n
Defense attorney Elmer Loose argued that the men\u2019s upbringing and home lives led to their crimes and that they should be sentenced to life in prison, not death.<\/p>\n
Judges Elmer Evans and J. Orin Waite weighed the evidence, including the first recorded confession ever played in Erie County court, and sentenced West and Pepperman to death in September 1945.<\/p>\n
The killers were \u201cprofessional criminals\u201d and \u201ca menace to society, waging war on it for profit,\u201d the judges said in their ruling. \u201cBy mercilessly beating and leaving to die an old gentleman who had been so kind to them, they have indicated viciousness and cruelty of heart and mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Loose unsuccessfully appealed the sentence to the state Supreme Court and the state Board of Pardons.<\/p>\n
Atomic \u2018guinea pigs\u2019 and jailhouse romance<\/p>\n
West and Pepperman resigned themselves to die, but not by electrocution, as ordered. Both men volunteered to be \u201cguinea pigs\u201d for U.S. atomic testing instead.<\/p>\n
Authorities passed on the offer. A Times-News columnist applauded it. If the military \u201cblew them to pieces,\u201d he wrote, \u201cthe state would save about two cents worth of electricity, the $350 the executioner receives for pulling the switch and the wear and tear on the sheriff\u2019s tires when he moves them to the death house.\u201d<\/p>\n
Held at the Erie County Prison until March 23, 1946, West and Pepperman received few visits from family. The public, though, clamored to see them, wanting to assess their mindsets or to read poetry and even perform magic tricks for the condemned.<\/p>\n
One visit that was allowed was by Alda Palmatier, a Williamsport woman who told reporters that she was a friend of Pepperman\u2019s and had come to love him since Campbell\u2019s murder. A photograph of the couple kissing through the bars of Pepperman\u2019s cell was printed in the Erie Times-News days before his execution.<\/p>\n
\u2018Two thousand volts of surging electricity\u2019<\/p>\n
A Times reporter attended and reported on the executions at Rockview Penitentiary near State College shortly after 12:30 a.m. on March 25, 1946.<\/p>\n
West died first. He watched as guards snapped clamps across his chest and attached an electrode to his left leg. Then came the death mask over his face and after that, the current.<\/p>\n
When it was switched off, a priest \u201cstepped forward, anointed the chest with holy oil as the final step of Extreme Unction, and over the body made the sign of the cross.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pepperman was executed minutes later.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo thousand volts of surging electricity early Monday put a final period to the last chapter in the long criminal careers of John Darius West and Robert William Pepperman,\u201d the Times reported.<\/p>\n
On June 8, 1946, when the nationwide \u201cGang Busters\u201d radio crime show detailed Campbell\u2019s murder and the investigation that led to his killers, it was said to be the first time in radio history that a recorded confession by a killer was broadcast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By USA Today Network via Reuters Connect Dubbed the \u201cHilltop Murder,\u201d the 1945 killing of Joseph B. Campbell…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137],"class_list":{"0":"post-86837","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-erie","8":"tag-erie","9":"tag-erie-headlines","10":"tag-erie-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}