Sex, lies, videotape, and acquittal: the unsolved murder of TV star Bob Crane
Unsolved murders are a source of endless fascination, and as unsavoury as it seems to say, that’s especially true when the crime involves a celebrity, and there’s a sordid or salacious element in play, all of which were present and accounted for in the death of Bob Crane.
Best known for his work on the hit TV series Hogan’s Heroes, where he played the title character Robert E Hogan for 168 episodes between 1965 and 1971, the show would mark the high point of his career. Less than a decade after he took his final bow as his most famous character, Crane’s murder opened the floodgates for a string of revelations about his private life that made his death headline news.
On June 29th, 1978, his body was discovered by Victoria Ann Berry, an actor he was co-starring with in a production of Beginner’s Luck at a local theatre in Phoenix, Arizona. Crane had been bludgeoned to death, and there was an electrical cord tied around his neck, but the investigation didn’t turn up much in the way of evidence.
The discovery of a TV star’s body battered beyond recognition and drenched in blood sparked a media frenzy, which took on a completely different complexion when Crane’s extracurricular proclivities started being woven into the fabric of the investigation. It’s never been proven if it had anything to do with his murder, but speculation has made those connections nonetheless.
Even at the height of his Hogan’s Heroes fame, Crane was known for videoing and photographing his sexual encounters, and while it was always claimed it was consensual for both parties, many women who were contacted by the authorities in the aftermath of his murder were adamant they had no idea they were being filmed.
It was an open secret in the industry that Crane collected mementoes of his sexual escapades, which may have been a factor in his career sliding downwards once Hogan’s Heroes had run its course. The prime suspect in his death was John Henry Carpenter, a regional sales manager for an electronics chain who routinely joined Crane on his nights on the town where he was angling to find the latest additions to his scrapbook.
The way Crane had been killed and the evidence suggesting no signs of forced entry led many to believe Carpenter was guilty. There was also blood found on the door of the hotel room where the killing took place, and blood matching Crane’s blood type was discovered on Carpenter’s rental car and the passenger door, but the lack of a murder weapon and concrete proof meant that it was a challenge to secure a warrant for his arrest.
All of the evidence began pointing in his direction, but there wasn’t enough to make a definitive case against him. Carpenter did stand trial for the murder of his former friend, but after being arrested and charged with the killing in 1992, he was ultimately acquitted two years later and maintained his innocence until his passing in 1998.
More than 40 years later, Crane’s murder remains unsolved, and while his son Robert isn’t entirely opposed to the Carpenter theory, he did suggest his former stepmother could have been responsible and financially motivated after intimating that with the couple in the midst of separating when he was killed, “If there’s no husband, she gets the whole thing.”
