KNIFE TRAGEDY

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXIX, Issue 82, 3 April 1934, Page 2

KNIFE TRAGEDY

MAN AWAITING SANITY TEST BLUE RINGS ROUND MOON SAN FRANCISCO, February 14. A man who walked into a radio station in Los Angeles and slashed two victims, one fatally, with a huge jackknife, while screams were carried into the microphone, stammered out a weird story of “putting blue rings around the moon ” as he awaited a sanity hearing. A radio cooking class was in session when Clarence L. Walters, aged fortyone, became affected in an adjoining room, and before he could be quelled Edwin Wolverton, aged twenty-one, of Grand Junction, Colorado, lay dying, and Warren Fehlman, aged forty, financial writer for the “Wall Street Journal,” was wounded.

“I went to the studio to show them how to put blue rings around the moon,” Walters declared in the psychopathic ward of the Los Angeles General Hospital. “If I stabbed a boy he must have got in my way.” Wolverton was wounded as he wrestled with his assailant. The latters knife pierced his skull to the brain, and he died within a few minutes.

Fehlman, who also sought to overpower Walters, was slashed about the head, but his wounds were not considered serious.

According to Miss Grace Kane, a secretary in the artists’ bureau of the station, Walters approached her desk, and, after mumbling a few incoherent words, whipped out his knife. He shouted, “By , I’m going to get a job here! ” The girl fled as Wolverton, appearing for an audition, entered the office. Walters turned on him. There was a brief struggle before Wolverton fell. Fehlman, entering a moment later, was attacked. His coat was cut to ribbons before Walters, breaking free, dashed down the hall.

He accosted C. E. Wylie, station manager, in the corridor. Wylie struck him a glancing blow with his fist. Walters fell ,and before he could regain his feet other studio attaches overpowered him. b