A KILLER 'PHONED ME!

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 35, 11 February 1939, Page 8 (Supplement)

A KILLER 'PHONED ME!

MTJELLO! Is that Chief Detec--0 tive Yoris? . . . My wife! She's been murdered!" 1 am used to the unexpected in my profession. But for a moment ! could hardly believe this message that came over the telephone. Often I had picked up the 'phone to hear Patrolman Gordon C. Jensen's crisp tones. He was a most efficient officer, popular with the force. But on this night of May 14, 1937, his voice sounded entirely different. It was a far-away voice, the voice of a man in a dream. The rest of the message came haltingly, shakily. There was a heartbreak in it. All of us at headquarters knew how he loved his wife. She was his second wife—his boyhood sweetheart who had married another, been widowed, and finally came back into his life. And Jensen had left his first wife to marry her.

ByChief Detective Ernest Yoris, AS TOLD TO GLEN KELLY

There has seldom been as much excitement at headquarters as when I passed on the word of the tragedy. Had some underworld enemy -of Jensen's strucjc at him through his wife In his 15 years in the police department of Seattle he had brought many a desperate criminal to justice. Patrolmen Max Meyers and John Haig were nearest the Jensen home and re- • sponded to the call. They found Jensen seated beside the prostrate body of his dark-haired 40-year-old wife, Mamie Jensen. He was holding his head in his hands. His face was the face of a man stunned with grief. "I cart't believe it," he sobbed. "I can't believe it. ... I came home. I ' hung up my coat. I looked for her. She was—there! Someone must have got into the house. She wouldn't do it < herself. ..." ] Again he buried his face in his hands. < The officers tried to console him. They i examined for fingerprints the automatic

'My Wife Has Been Murdered'

which had been Jensen's gift to his wife—and they found only her own. The weapon lay, still smelling of powder, on the drainboard of the sink, above the body. Tliey brought the dazed man to headquarters. "I don't want to live!" he burst out. We feared that he would take liis own life, and so we decided to keep him at headquarters in a padded cell until he gained control of himself. Dr. Wilson, who examined the body of Mamie Jensen, said that only one bullet had struck her. Fred Kuphal, next door neighbour to the Jensens, told us he had heard three bullet shots fired. We found that one bullet had actually lodged in Kuphal's wall; another penetrated a cupboard in Jensen's house, and the third went into a bread box. The hole in the cupboard was surrounded by tiny bits of human hair. This was no doubt the shot that had ended the woman's life. We discovered that Jensen's first wife, Ida, the mother of his four children, had divorced him five years before because of his companionship with the woman he subsequently married. Strangely enough, as 600n as ehe heard of the tragedy, Ida Jensen came to police headquarters in a sincere desire to comfort the stricken man. « Another neighbour told us that Mamie was always afraid' of someone. "She told us several times that Gordon had answered the telephone when it rang, and that someone had hung up at the other end, and it worried her," added the neighbour. "She was afraid of someone checkingup to see if Gordon was at home or if she was alone. Finally Gordon gave her the automatic so that she wouldn't be quite so nervous." Whom did Mamie Jensen feart I began to scout the theory of -a revenge killing. It looked to me like the crime of a man crazed with drink or drugs. Then came some startling developments. I received a medical report that Jensen had powder marks oil the side of his face. Then a police colleague of Jensen's told me that all had not been smooth sailing since his marriage to Mamie. Each had seemed jealous of

I*ll - - 'Malls the other. It was also revealed' Jensen had been worried about his wife tJ? drinking. They had bezn heard quurelling occasionally. When Jensen had recovered control of himself he confirmed the story of mysterious 'phone calls and the ffcet that he had given Mamie the automata » for protection. Suddenly I shot at him. "Did kill her?" ; " l He raised his haggard face. He knew there was no way out. "I don't know Yoris," he said. "I might have g]| her. I don't know." Three times lie broke into sobs during the grilling that followed. Then he told a tragic story— '"isf? how he and his wife had been out together, how they quarrelled about U drinking too much. When they got home, he said, she came at him with her automatic, yelling: "I'm going to >ISf kill you." They struggled for posses- Jfjl sion of the weapon and it went off I§§ twice. "That was when I got the M powder burns on my face," said Jensen. 11l A few days later ho revealed that he* 2 ?/; had been 60 crazed by jealousy that he p J went temporarily insane. "I loved her. Those 'phono call*—l ftl knew it was some man calling her, -who M hung up at the sound of my voice," declared. jpltSl "That night we were alone in the fte house. She entered first. I followed. It M was my gun with which she wa* »hot!Il| I had it in my pocket just before «<nt. I don't know exactly what happened. ®fi Jealousy was driving me mad. I snj.Bjf|S pected there was someone else. WeWS§ started to argue. "She was standing here in the kitchen, Sll? by the sink, getting dinner. I there, too, and the gun—it was in my pocket. I kept asking her about this fi other fellow. Finally she said there SH was somebody else. Something seemed *10 to snap in my brain. "The next thing I remember tu SIS when you walked in, Yoris, and she wit lying there—dead." Jensen was arrested and put on trial S for the murder of his wife. For the® defence it was urged that the shootmgSlii was accidental, and that Jensen was struggling to pr*vt t his wife from shooting him with a bullet from the pistol which ended her own life. , The jury found him guilty of second degree murder, and he wta sentenced to M 25 years' imprisonment in the State Penitentiary.