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Post by ophion1031 on Aug 13, 2018 0:11:59 GMT -8
CHICAGO, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- FBI files seen by a Chicago television station point to the late son of an Illinois industrial tycoon as the prime suspect in the 1966 killing of Valerie Percy. Percy, the 21-year-old daughter of former Republican Sen. Charles H. Percy, was fatally stabbed and beaten in her bedroom in the family's stately lakefront home Sept. 18, 1966, in the wealthy north shore suburb of Kenilworth during her father's first U.S. Senate campaign. Charles Percy served nearly 20 years in the Senate. He died in 2011 at the age of 91. No one ever was charged in his daughter's slaying -- once dubbed America's No. 1 murder mystery. WLS-TV, Chicago, investigative reporters Friday said newly obtained information from FBI records and a new book on the crime name William Thoresen III as a prime suspect. Thoresen lived just a 1 1/2 blocks from the Percy home and was described as "violent," and a "mental case ... armed and dangerous" in a report by FBI agents who investigated the crime. Glenn Wall, a Chicago native who wrote a book about the Valerie Percy slaying, told WLS authorities believe she was killed with a serrated bayonet and Thoresen had been arrested in Chicago and Los Angeles for aggravated assault and possession of illegal weapons. Police found a bayonet in Lake Michigan three days after the killing, but it was never connected to the crime. Footprints in sand led from the Percy home to the beach. Thoresen was living in New York when he was finally found but refused to answer any questions from police. He was fatally shot by his wife in 1970. She said he once admitted to killing several people. Valerie Percy would have been 70 had she lived. The case was never closed. __________________________________________________________________________ FBI files I found that prove that they were investigating Thoresen just weeks after the murder. He refused to answer any of their questions, but they did not arrest him. "Oh, you didn't do it? Ok, have a good day." Idiots. I think there is a 95% chance that Thoresen committed this murder. He is a far better suspect than anyone else I have read or heard about... Here is a good read by a woman who knew Valerie Percy: mrslinklatersguidetotheuniverse.blogspot.com/2014/01/degrees-of-separation.html
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Post by ophion1031 on Aug 13, 2018 0:25:46 GMT -8
A deposit for $10,000 was put into Thoresen's bank account a couple days before Valerie's murder. Perhaps someone paid Thoresen to kill Valerie. I doubt it, but it is possible.
I posted the following on my Zodiac site three years ago, but do not recall where I found the information: "As the investigation continued there was a flurry of excitement when an 18-year-old Arizona youth told police in Tucson that he had been paid $75 by a stranger "to kill anyone in the Percy home." The youth later admitted he had made the story up."
This is very interesting. Thoresen and a couple of friends used to light dynamite outside of a radio station in TUCSON, ARIZONA to scare the DJ, who supposedly was a friend of Thoresen. The police caught one of the friends, who told the police Thoresen was behind the dynamite pranks. The friend would not testify against Thoresen because he was scared to death of him, and rightfully so. Could there be a connection between Thoresen and this kid who said he was paid to kill anyone in the Percy home?
Also worth noting is that Thoresen owed architect George Livermore quite a bit of money. He paid some of his bill, but not all of it. He still owed Livermore a great deal of money. Livermore lived at the corner of Washington & Cherry in 1967, but was listed at a different address in 1969 when the Paul Stine murder occurred.
Money was a big deal to Thoresen (he once broke a waiter's arm over a 75 cent charge on his tab that he thought shouldn't be there) and he did not like to pay people he owed.
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Post by ophion1031 on Aug 13, 2018 0:38:53 GMT -8
A video tour of locations with connections to the Valerie Percy murder, 1966, Illinois, by the author of the book (Sympathy Vote) about the crime. Valerie, 21, was U.S. Senator Charles Percy's daughter:
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Post by amazingates on Dec 5, 2019 22:09:50 GMT -8
so do we KNOW if Thorenson is connected to the Minutemen, or were they just "checking" because Thorensen had houses in that area where the Minutemen were and they both were into large amounts of guns, etc? Is there a documented or "otherwise" known connection?
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Post by ophion1031 on Dec 8, 2019 3:46:29 GMT -8
so do we KNOW if Thorenson is connected to the Minutemen, or were they just "checking" because Thorensen had houses in that area where the Minutemen were and they both were into large amounts of guns, etc? Is there a documented or "otherwise" known connection? The FBI could never prove it, and Thoresen denied having any involvement with radical groups, but I have a very reliable source that claims otherwise.
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Post by amazingates on Dec 8, 2019 9:05:25 GMT -8
so do we KNOW if Thorenson is connected to the Minutemen, or were they just "checking" because Thorensen had houses in that area where the Minutemen were and they both were into large amounts of guns, etc? Is there a documented or "otherwise" known connection? The FBI could never prove it, and Thoresen denied having any involvement with radical groups, but I have a very reliable source that claims otherwise. _____________ ok, cool, then I'll give that thought while I'm looking for information. A lot of people have ties to things, but unless there is something in writing or you have something on you or in your possession to actually say you are part of a group, then FBI etc, can't really PROVE it; so makes sense he could very well have been a minuteman even though not proven.
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Post by ophion1031 on Dec 8, 2019 22:41:35 GMT -8
Thoresen wasn't a member of the Minutemen as far as I know, but he was selling them weapons. I have heard that he was selling to other groups as well but have not seen proof of that just yet. A while back we were talking about Thoresen possibly possessing weapons that were stolen from a military base, and that wouldn't surprise me one bit, but I don't think any of the weapons he got busted with were from military bases. I had a brief conversation with someone on another site years ago about stolen military weapons and I remember discussing one particular base in California. I forget the name of the base, but I will see if I can find that thread again.
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Post by amazingates on Dec 8, 2019 23:07:28 GMT -8
Thoresen wasn't a member of the Minutemen as far as I know, he he was selling them weapons. I have heard that he was selling to other groups as well but have not seen proof of that just yet. A while back we were talking about Thoresen possibly possessing weapons that were stolen from a military base, and that wouldn't surprise me one bit, but I don't think any of the weapons he got busted with were from military bases. I had a brief conversation with someone on another site years ago about stolen military weapons and I remember discussing one particular base in California. I forget the name of the base, but I will see if I can find that thread again. ____________ I know guns and ammo were being stolen from Fort Ord, Monterey, CA. I know that personally. And they were running drugs out of the base there and several of them got caught, so there should be some article about it somewhere. this was probably around hmmmm 1968 maybe... maybe 69. I'm not sure. I'm thinking maybe, but not sure I am remembering this right, Eddie Mellowas involved in that... Or it might have been Larry Sales(but he was in with the Mutiny charges at the Presidio on SF, so i don't know if he was over involved in the Fort Ord Gun thing, but I really thought i remember he was. And then there were a bunch of guns, ammo, grenades and a TANK stolen out of the modesto Armory back in hmmm 1969? might have been 68. They got arrested so might be some articles on that, i am sure there is something as they were all charged in Federal Court. Would have been Floyd Jordan, Michael Raya, Gene Flemming, Ricky Grayson, someone else and can't remember. Then were was a cache of guns up in oregon back in about 76 maybe, up around Grants Pass/Eagles Point. Buried up there. I don't know whatever became of that, but it had to do with Manson. And then there were a bunch tossed off a train white it was going over the pass to Boise Idaho. Those are probably still out there somewhere haha. My brother-in-law is dead now, so I can say it, he and his wife tossed out a whole freight car load going over the pass. Trying to remember what year that was. hmmm probably, in the 70's sometime, I can't remember. Hmm trying to find anything on it... I did find this... Life Magazine Article April 4, 1969 Someone was saying guns stolen from Fort Ord were being sold to the Minutemen. then the dang page is gone and can't read the rest. linkThis must not be about the same thing? they did end up arresting a bunch of people over that, a few I knew. but maybe they finally caught them later. hmm I wonder who this Johnson guy is who was telling on them. hmmm. I don't want to derail the Valerie Percy thread, let me take this over on some other thread and I'll link it back on here. ok I see you already made a thread, I'll copy all of this over there and we can discuss it over there.
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Post by ophion1031 on Dec 8, 2019 23:18:55 GMT -8
I would be that it was an inside job. I mean, I would have to be. But drug running out of a military base is interesting for several reasons. Darlene Ferrin was said to have been a small time pot dealer and knew more than she should have about a large drug and counterfeiting ring. Could be why she was killed. Rumor is that David Faraday may have knew something as well and had to be silenced. I'm not sure about any of that. But it plays into my theory that Zodiac was a character created to draw attention away from a drug ring. If this same drug ring was being operated by military officials out of Fort Ord, that would make sense why the case is still unsolved. In 1990 there was a Sgt. Jarvis Earl Worelds stationed at Ford Ord that was arrested in a drug ring, but again that was 1990 so probably not related to what you're talking about. I'll start a thread on that so we don't clutter up the Valerie Percy thread. EDIT: Here is a link theslaughterhouse.freeforums.net/thread/410/drugs
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Post by ophion1031 on May 19, 2020 20:58:24 GMT -8
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Post by ophion1031 on Jul 28, 2020 21:47:35 GMT -8
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Post by ophion1031 on Aug 16, 2020 21:35:35 GMT -8
cornellalumnimagazine.com/justice-denied/ By Beth Saulnier September/October 2016 Even after five decades, emeritus professor of psychology James Maas, PhD ’66, vividly recalls the early morning phone call from his housemate, a staffer at WVBR. “He said, ‘Jim, I’m reading what’s coming over the AP wire right now, and your friend Valerie has been murdered,’ ” he says. “It was like a horrific dream.” In shock, Maas went outside and—scarcely knowing what to do with himself—started mowing the lawn. “I think I mowed for three hours,” says Maas, then in the early years of teaching the now-legendary Psych 101 course that would continue until his retirement in 2012. “And it was a very small lawn.” For Maas, who counted Valerie Percy ’66 among his closest Cornellian friends, it was a devastating personal tragedy. For the nation, it was a shocking crime—one that remains unsolved to this day. The daughter of a successful Chicago-area manufacturing executive, Percy was just twenty-one and newly graduated from Cornell when she was killed in the pre-dawn hours of September 18, 1966, in the family’s elegant home on the Lake Michigan shore. The crime made national headlines: the Ivy League-educated child of a U.S. senatorial candidate had been bludgeoned and stabbed to death in her own bed by an unknown intruder, in an affluent suburban village where violent crime was all but unheard of. Modern forensic science was in its infancy; DNA testing was decades off, and small-town police departments were often ill-equipped to cope with major crimes. Although some potentially promising evidence was gathered at the scene—including a glove and a moccasin—it was never matched to a perpetrator. A bayonet recovered from the lake wasn’t definitively identified as the murder weapon. The only eyewitness—Percy’s stepmother, who entered her bedroom when she heard sounds of distress—didn’t get a clear look at the killer as he rushed past. Although the crime may have been connected to a cluster of burglaries in the area, the fact that nothing was taken from the Percy home cast doubt on that theory. Valerie Percy had graduated from Cornell only the previous spring, having majored in French literature. Linda Bernstein Miller ’66, one of her Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority sisters, recalls that Percy was thrilled to spend her junior year in Paris and adored French music. “She listened to Edith Piaf day in and day out,” Miller remembers, calling Percy “a happy, loving, beautiful person. She was gorgeous to look at and wonderful fun to be around. She laughed all the time.” Fellow Kappa sister Mary Wellington Daly ’66 remembers her with equal fondness. “Val was cheerful, optimistic, unpretentious, humble, gracious—beautiful inside and out,” she says. “When she entered a room it was as if she were floating in on a breeze. Rarely was she not wearing a most radiant smile.” On campus, Percy’s mentors included famed philosopher Allan Bloom—future author of The Closing of the American Mind—then a professor of government. In the Daily Sun the day after her death, he eulogized her as “a gracious young lady who always wanted to do the right thing.” In news stories, Percy was lauded as friendly, open, and down-to-earth despite her family’s wealth and status. “Considering the fact her family is very prominent and she had every right to be a snob,” the late Sandra Stone Bugge ’67, Percy’s Kappa “little sister,” told the New York Times, “she was one of the most sincere and unpretentious people I knew.” At the time of Percy’s death, she was planning to pursue a master’s in international studies at Johns Hopkins; she’d spent the summer doing campaign work for her father, Charles Percy, a Republican senatorial hopeful considered to have presidential potential. “Val was very, very close to her father,” Daly recalls. “Although her personality would not lead you to believe that she would throw herself into a political campaign, she willingly, eagerly, and tirelessly campaigned for her father during his Senate run.” When news of Valerie’s death broke, his opponent—Democratic incumbent Paul Douglas—immediately sent condolences and pledged to temporarily halt campaigning. The race resumed after the funeral; Charles Percy went on to win, serving three terms until he was unseated in 1984 by Senator Paul Simon. In 2013, Chicago journalist Glenn Wall self-published a book about the case, Sympathy Vote: A Reinvestigation of the Valerie Percy Murder. (The title refers in part to the notion that Charles Percy’s grief may have prompted some Illinoisans to cast ballots in his favor.) In it, Wall identifies a man whom he calls an overwhelmingly likely suspect: William Thoresen III, the emotionally disturbed scion of a wealthy family that lived near the Percys. Thoresen, who’d been in regular trouble with the police since his youth, was suspected of numerous crimes including the murder of his own brother; four years after the Percy killing, Thoresen was shot to death by his wife, who successfully claimed self-defense. Valerie’s murder, Wall notes, “is one of the better known cold cases,” still discussed and debated in online forums. Just last spring, it resurfaced in the courts. New York attorney John Kelly—who has represented the families of well-known homicide victims including Nicole Brown Simpson and Natalie Holloway—filed suit to compel several law enforcement agencies to release records about the Percy investigation. Kelly says that his motives are personal rather than professional: he grew up in the Chicago area, was thirteen at the time of the murder, and has an abiding curiosity about the case. A hearing in the suit was held in mid-August, with a ruling likely several months off. Even though fifty years have passed since Percy graduated from Cornell, her memory remains alive on the Hill in a small but meaningful way: a scholarship in her name that her friends, sorority sisters, and others endowed decades ago is still being awarded annually. With the aim of enabling current students to share one of her most treasured experiences, the Valerie J. Percy Junior Year Abroad Scholarship provides funds for female undergrads to study in France. “Every year, I get beautiful letters from the recipients,” Miller says. “It’s a very loving, wonderful memorial to Valerie.”
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