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The famous lipstick note "For heavens sake catch me before I kill more I cannot control myself"
William George Heirens (b. November 15, 1928 in Evanston, Illinois) is an American serial killer who confessed to three murders in 1946. Heirens has also been called The Lipstick Killer due to a notorious message scrawled in lipstick at a crime scene.

Heirens grew up in Lincolnwood, a suburb of Chicago and was, by all accounts, rather an odd child. At the age of 11, Heirens claimed to have witnessed a couple making love. He told his mother, who then told him that all sex was dirty, and would lead to diseases. While kissing a girlfriend he burst into tears, and proceeded to vomit in the presence of the girl. At 13 years old, Heirens was arrested for carrying a loaded gun. A subsequent search of the Heirens’ home discovered more weapons hidden in a refrigerator and in the loft. Heirens admitted to a string of burglaries and was sent to the Gibault School for wayward boys for several months. He claimed that he mostly stole for fun and to release tension.

FIRST MUDER: Josephine Ross
In June of 1945, the mutilated body of a middle-aged woman was found in her north Chicago apartment, bearing multiple stab wounds. The woman’s throat had been slashed, and the wounds left there strangely covered over with adhesive tape, as though the killer was trying to erase or repair what he had done. The woman’s dress had been drawn up to cover her face; the only other evidence at the scene was a quantity of dark hairs clutched in the victim’s hand. When all of the usual suspects – former lovers, ex-husbands, current boyfriends and the like – were ruled out as possible perpetrators, it seemed that Josephine Ross’ killer would never be found. With no clear motive, local police assumed that the unlucky woman had interrupted a burglary (in spite of a lack of anything of value having gone missing) and fallen victim to circumstance. With no clear suspect in mind and little evidence to go on, two months after the murder, the case lapsed and was presumed to be unsolvable. At first she was presumed to have surprised an intruder, who then killed her. Dark hairs were found clutched in Ross' hand, indicating that she had struggled with the intruder before she was killed.

Ross’ fiancé had an alibi, as did her former boyfriends and ex-husbands, and police had no other suspects. They looked for a dark-complexioned man who was reported loitering at the apartment or running from the scene, but were unable to identify or locate him.

SECOND MURDER: Frances Brown

Six months and less than half a mile away from where Josephine Ross was discovered, a second body was found in December of 1945. The circumstance and state of the body were strikingly similar; again, a middle-aged single woman, Frances Brown, was found alone in her apartment, repeatedly stabbed. Her head had been wrapped in her own pajamas, and in addition to multiple stab wounds, she was found to have a bullet wound at the base of her skull. Again, the wounds to her neck were covered over with adhesive tape. The apartment was left in a state of disarray, with bloody trails leading from the victim’s gore-soaked bed to her bathroom, where she had been found thrown over the bathtub. In spite of the obvious viciousness of the crime, police again first surmised it to be an interrupted burglary.

This was the body of 32-year-old stenographer Frances Brown. She was discovered on december 11, in the bathroom of her apartment at the Pine Grove Hotel. Brown had been shot in the head and stabbed with a bread knife that had been driven into her neck with such force that the blade emerged through the other side of her throat. Her body had been stripped naked and rinsed of blood, her head wrapped in towels. Police found themselves once more hampered by a lack of evidence; the apartment had apparently been wiped clean of fingerprints But this time, someone had left a message for them: On the living room wall, written in an odd, curling hand using Brown’s own red lipstick, were the words for heavens sake catch me before i kill more i cannot control myself. It was a detail custom-made for Chicago’s sensationalist press—they splashed across their front pages the shocking work of the murderer they christened the Lipstick Killer.

Bathroom where Frances was found, towels stained with blood
Francis Brown

Francis Brown was discovered stabbed to death in her apartment after a cleaning woman heard a radio playing loud and noted Brown’s door partly open. Brown, too, had been savagely stabbed, and authorities thought that a burglar had been discovered or interrupted. Again, no valuables were taken.

Police found a bloody fingerprint smudge on the door jamb of the entrance door. Also, there was a possible eyewitness to the killer's escape. An "ear-witness", George Weinberg, heard gunshots at about 4 a.m. The body had been placed in a basin and bathed

According to John Derick the Night Clerk stationed in the lobby of the building, a nervous man of 35-40 years old and weighing approximately 140 pounds had got off the elevator fumbled for the door to the street and left.

3rd Murder
Suzanne Degnan

On January 7, 1946, six-year-old Suzanne Degnan was discovered missing from her bedroom. After searching the home and not finding the girl, her family called police.

Her seeming kidnapping earned significant publicity, and police vowed to find whoever was responsible. Police found a ladder outside the girl’s window, and also discovered a ransom note which had been overlooked by the family. The note read:

Get $20,000 ready & waite [sic] for word. Do not notify FBI or police. Bills in $5's and $10's.

On the reverse of the note was written,

Burn this for her safty [sic].

A man repeatedly called the Degnan residence demanding the ransom, but hung up before any meaningful conversation could take place.

Police questioned the Degnan family's neighbors, but no one had seen anything unusual. Someone telephoned police anonymously, suggesting that police look in the sewers near the Degnan home. Police did, and discovered the young girl’s head in a catch basin that was in an alley.

In the same alley they discovered the girl's right leg in another catch basin; her torso in a storm drain; her left leg found in another alley. Her arms were found in a sewer a month later.

Searches uncovered a laundry tub in a nearby apartment building basement across where her head was found that seemed to have been where she was dismembered. The press called it the "Murder Room".

Ransom note
Police questioned hundreds of people, and gave polygraph exams to about 170. On several occasions, authorities claimed to have captured the killer, but were embarrassed when the cases proved baseless and the suspects were released.

A janitor, 65-year-old Hector Verburgh, was arrested on suspicion of murder, on the basis that he worked in the apartment building where Degnan lived, the sink in which the victim was dismembered was in an area he frequented, and the grimy state of the ransom note suggested it was written by a dirty hand, and janitors frequently have dirty hands.

So confident were the police that they told the press "This is the Man", despite discrepancies between Verburgh's profile and the one that was developed by them as to what kind of skills the killer had, including him having surgical knowledge or at least being a butcher.

The elderly man was repeatedly beaten under police questioning for 48 hours, suffering injuries including a separated shoulder. Despite this he refused to confess. Verburgh's Janitor Union lawyer got Verburgh released on a writ of habeas corpus. He said of the experience:

"Oh, they hanged me up, they blindfolded me", Verburgh said after his release. "I can’t put up my arms, they are sore. They had handcuffs on me for hours and hours. They threw me in the cell and blindfolded me. They handcuffed my hands behind my back and pulled me up on bars until my toes touched the floor. I no eat, I go to the hospital. Oh, I am so sick. Any more and I would have confessed to anything."

He spent 10 days in the hospital. It was determined that Verburgh couldn't write English well enough even by the crude standards of the ransom note itself, for him to have written it. He sued the Chicago Police Department for USD$15,000 but was awarded USD$20,000, approximately USD$211,000 in 2007 dollars.(Cost of living Calculator)

Five thousand dollars ($52,740 2007 dollars) of the $20,000 awarded to Verburgh was awarded to his wife. The police tried to pressure her to implicate her husband in the murder.

Police examining the sewers
Another notable false lead was that of Sidney Sherman, a recently discharged Marine who had served in World War II. Police had found blond hairs in the back of the Degnan apartment building and nearby was a wire that authorities suspected could had been used as a garrote to strangle Suzanne Degnan.

Near that was a handkerchief the police suspected might had been used as a gag to keep Suzanne quiet. On the handkerchief was a laundry mark name: S. Sherman. The police hoped that perhaps the killer had made a fatal error leaving it behind. They searched military records and discovered that a Sidney Sherman lived nearby at the Hyde Park YMCA. A nation-wide manhunt ensued. Sherman was found four days later in Toledo, Ohio. He explained under interrogation that he had eloped with his girlfriend and denied that the handkerchief was his. He was administered a polygraph test which he passed and was later cleared.

Eventually the real owner was found; the handkerchief belonged to Airman Seymour Sherman of New York City who had been out of the country when Suzanne Degnan was murdered. He had no idea how it could possibly had ended up in Chicago and the presence of the handkerchief was determined to be a coincidence.

Mystery phone calls solved

On the day of Suzanne Degnan's disappearance several calls to the Degnan residence demanding ransom payment but without leaving further instructions or further conversation were made. The mystery of who placed those calls was answered.

While checking out local hooligans to see if they had any connection to the Degnan case, they picked up a local boy named Theodore Campbell. Under questioning, he admitted that another local teenager, named Vincent Costelloto, had killed Suzanne Degnan. The Chicago Tribune declared the Degnan case solved. Costello lived only a few blocks from the Degnan apartment building and attended the nearby High School before being convicted of armed robbery at age 16 and sent to reform school. According to the story Campbell told the police, Costello told him that he kidnapped and killed the girl and disposed of her body. Costello allegedly told Campbell to make ransom calls to the Degnans. This corroborated the mystery ransom calls made to the Degnans the morning after Suzanne was reported missing. The police arrested Costello on that basis and interrogated him overnight.

The story started to fall apart when both Campbell's and Costello's polygraph test indicated that they had no knowledge of the murder. They later admitted that they heard police officers discussing details of the case and came up with the idea of calling the Degnans about the ransom.

In February, Suzanne Degnan's arms were found by sewer workers about a half mile from her home after the rest of her was already interred. By April some 370 suspects were questioned and cleared.

By this time the press was taking an increasingly critical tone as to how the police were handling the investigation.

Another confession:

"I want to go back to Chicago and take my medicine, even if it means the chair", Richard Russell Thomas said. Thomas was a male nurse living in Phoenix, Arizona having moved from Chicago. At the time, he was imprisoned in Phoenix for molesting one of his own daughters.

Elements of his handwriting matched the ransom note and his medical training as a nurse matched the profile suggested by police. However, he apparently had some elements of the case wrong. Because of the errors, and the suspicion that Thomas confessed in order to avoid jail time in Arizona, the confession was disregarded.

In addition, the authorities were intrigued by a promising new suspect reported to the paper the same day the Thomas development broke. A college student was caught fleeing from the scene of a burglary, brandished a gun at police and possibly tried to kill one of the pursuing policemen to escape. By this time Thomas had recanted his confession, but the press didn't notice in light of this new lead.

William Heirens during booking
Arrest and questioning of Heirens

On June 26, 1946, when he was 17, Heirens was arrested on attempted burglary charges when someone saw him breaking into an apartment. He fled, the building's janitor pursued him and blocked his path out of the building. However Heirens allegedly pointed the gun he was carrying at the caretaker saying "Let me get out or I'll let you have it in the guts!"

The Janitor ceased his pursuit. Heirens made his way to a nearby building to lay low, but a resident spotted him and called the police. Two officers closed in from two different directions. When trapped, Heirens brandished a revolver, perhaps pointing the barrel at one officer.

Some reports state that he actually pulled the trigger but the gun misfired. In the police account, Heirens charged them after his gun misfired twice. In Heirens' version, he turned and attempted to run after bluffing with the gun and the cops charged him. A scuffle resulted that ended only when an off-duty policeman dropped a flowerpot on Heirens’s head, rendering him unconscious.

According to Heirens, he remembered drifting into consciousness under questioning. The Police had taken him to Bridewell Hospital, which was adjacent to the Cook County Jail. Policemen were threatening him, pushing him and then punching him, jabbing him in the body. He felt his hands being pushed onto an inkpad.

With a prior record, he was familiar with the feeling. He drifted in and out of consciousness. The questioning became more intense, demanding to know how he did it, to say that he did it, they "knew" that he did it. At one point, someone punched him in the testicles, causing him to nearly vomit. They also burned them with ether.

Heirens later said he was interrogated around the clock for six consecutive days, being beaten and abused by police and not allowed to eat or drink. He was not allowed to see his parents for four days. He was also refused the opportunity to speak to a lawyer for six days.

Two psychiatrists, Doctors Haines and Roy Grinker, gave Heirens sodium pentathol without a warrant and without Heirens' or his parents' consent, and interrogated for three hours.

Under the influence of the drug, authorities claimed, Heirens spoke of an alternate personality named "George Murman", who had actually committed the murders. Heirens claimed that he recalled little of the drug-induced interrogation. What Heirens actually said is in dispute, as the original transcript has disappeared.

On his fifth day in custody, Heirens was given a lumbar puncture without anesthesia. Moments later, Heirens was driven to police headquarters for a polygraph test. They tried for a few minutes to administer the test but he was in such obvious pain that the test was rescheduled for several days later.

When the polygraph was administered, authorities, including Touhy, announced that the results were “inconclusive.” On July 2, 1946 he was transferred to the Cook County Jail where he was placed in the infirmary to recover.

Heirens’s first confession

The young man was even subjected to a lumbar puncture procedure – a spinal tap – without any form of anesthesia, and immediate interrogated afterwards (incredibly dangerous- if a patient moves during this procedure it can lead to permanent paralysis. It's obviously also painful)

After the sodium pentathol questioning but before the polygraph exam, Heirens spoke to Captain Michael Ahern, one of the few Chicago police officers who had shown him any kindness. With State's Attorney William Tuohy and a stenographer at hand, Heirens offered an indirect confession, confirming his claim while under sodium pentathol that his alter-ego of "George Murman" might have been responsible for the crimes.

That "George" (which happens to be his father's first name and Heirens's middle name) had given him the loot to hide in his dormitory room. Police hunted all over for this "George" questioning Heirens's known friends family and associations, but came away empty handed.

Details of the interrogation did get out at the time, valid or not. Heirens was attributed as saying while under the influence that he met "George" when he was 13 years old; that it was "George" who sent him out prowling at night, that he robbed for pleasure, "killed like a Cobra" when cornered and relating his secrets to Heirens.

Heirens allegedly claimed that he was always taking the rap for George, first for petty theft, then assault and now murder. Psychologist explained at the time that Heirens made up this duo-personality like how normal children made up imaginary friends to keep his diabolical deeds separate from the person who could be the "average son and student, date nice girls and go to church,..."

Authorities were skeptical of Heirens’s claims and suspected that he was laying the groundwork for an insanity defense, but the confession earned widespread publicity with the press transforming "Murman" to "Murder Man".

Hard Evidence?
While handwriting analysts did not definitely link Heirens’ handwriting to the "Lipstick Message", police claimed that his fingerprints matched a print discovered at the scene of the Frances Brown murder. It was first reported as a "bloody smudge" in the door jamb.

Further, a fingerprint of the small left finger also allegedly connected Heirens to the ransom note with nine points of comparison. At the time Heirens' supporters pointed out the FBI handbook regarding fingerprint identification required 12 points of comparison matching to have a positive identification.

Later, Chief of Detectives Walter Storms confirmed that the "bloody smudge" left on the door jamb was Heirens's.

Police display trophies and other items found in the killer's dorm room
Police searches (without a warrant) of Heirens’s residence and college dormitory found other items that earned publicity. Notably found was a scrapbook containing pictures of Nazi officials that belonged to a war veteran, Harry Gold, that was taken when Heirens burgled his place the night Suzanne Degnan was killed. Gold lived in the vicinity of the Degnans that put Heirens in the circle of suspicion.

More relevant considering the context of the case against him, the police found in Heirens' possession a stolen copy of Psychopathia Sexualis. The press focused on it and started to depict the young burglar as a real life Mr. Hyde.

The police also found a stolen medical kit among Heirens' possessions. They announced that the medical instruments could not be linked to the murders. No trace of biological material such as blood, skin and hair were found on the tools.

However, no biological material of the victims were found on Heirens himself or any of his clothes. The medical kit tools were considered to be too fine and small to be used for dissection. Heirens had used the four inch long medical kit to alter the war bonds he stole.

A gun was found in his possession that was linked to a shooting. A Colt Police Positive revolver had been stolen in a burglary at the apartment of Guy Rodrick on December 3, 1945. Two nights later, a bullet crashed through the closed eighth floor apartment window of Marion Caldwell, wounding her. Heirens had that gun in his possession and, according to the Chicago Police Department, the bullet that injured Caldwell was linked through ballistics to that same gun.

An eyewitness

George E. Subgrunski, an active duty soldier, made a statement the day after the murder of Suzanne Degnan that he saw a figure walking in the direction of the Degnan residence with a shopping bag. He said he was about "about five feet, nine inches tall, weighing about 170 pounds, about 35 years old, and dressed in a light-colored fedora and a dark overcoat". Due to the lack of light he couldn't make out this person facial features. When the police showed him a photo of Heirens on July 11, he could not identify him as the man he saw.

On July 16, during a hearing, he pointed to Heirens and says "That's the man I saw!" when he was brought into a courtroom and made the identification in person. The Chicago press stated that this solidified the case against Heirens. Subgrunski's testimony helped to return an indictment. Later, Subgrunski's in court testimony would be discredited, but quietly.

A radio newscast reported on the Chicago Tribune's scoop of the "confession" which Heirens heard in his cell. He was incredulous stating:

"I didn't confess to anybody, honestly! My God, what are they going to pin on me next?"

Heirens' lawyers pressured him to take Touhy's plea bargain. That deal, which was the topic of that closed door meeting with Touhy, stated that Heirens would serve one life sentence if he confessed to the murders of Josephine Ross, Frances Brown, and Suzanne Degnan. With the help of his lawyers, he began drafting a confession using the Chicago Tribune article as a guide:

"As it turned out, the Tribune article was very helpful, as it provided me with a lot of details I didn't know. My attorneys rarely changed anything outright, but I could tell by their faces if I had made a mistake. Or they would say, 'Now, Bill, is that really the way it happened?' Then I would change my story because, obviously, it went against what was known (in the Tribune)."

Both Heirens and his parents signed a confession. The parties agreed to a date of July 30 for Heirens to make his official confession. On that date the defense went to Tuohy's office, where several reporters were assenbled to ask Heirens questions and where Tuohy himself made a speech. Heirens appeared bewildered and gave noncommital answers to reporters' questions, which he years later blamed on Tuohy:

"It was Tuohy himself. After assembling all the officials, including attorneys and policemen, he began a preamble about how long everyone had waited to get a confession from me, but, at last, the truth was going to be told. He kept emphasizing the word 'truth' and I asked him if he really wanted the truth. He assured me that he did...Now Tuohy made a big deal about hearing the truth. Now, when I was being forced to lie to save myself. It made me angry...so I told them the truth, and everyone got very upset."

Tuohy withdrew the previously agreed sentence of one life terms with a few minor charges and changed it to three life terms to run consecutively and threatened Heirens with the death penalty if he went to trial.

They threatened to charge him with the murder of Estelle Carey even though Heirens was attending the Gibault School for Wayward Boys a boarding school in Terre Haute, Indiana at the time. Heirens’ own attorneys were angry at their client for reneging on the plea bargain. The Chicago Tribune had a headline:

Tuohy announced that he would press ahead to try Heirens for the deaths of Suzanne Degnan and Frances Brown.

Heirens agreed with the new plea agreement. The public allocution was held again in Tuohy's office. This time, Heirens talked and answered questions, even reenacting parts of the murders he had confessed to. Ahern changed his opinion and believed he was culpable when he heard how familiar Heirens was with victim Frances Brown's apartment.

Heirens said later: "I confessed to save my life."

The knife

In his confession, Heirens stated that he disposed of the hunting knife with which he said he cut up Suzanne Degnan on the Elevated Subway tracks near the scene of the murder. The police never searched the EL tracks, however. Learning of this, reporters inquired with the track crew if they had found a knife. They had found it on the tracks and they kept it in the Granville station storage room.

There reporters determined that the knife belonged to Guy Rodrick, the same person who had his Colt Police Positive .22 caliber gun stolen and found in Heiren's possession. On July 31, he positively identified the knife as his. Heirens acknowledged that he threw the knife there from an EL train, claiming he didn't want his mother to see it.

Guilty Plea
Heirens took full responsibility for the three murders on August 7, 1946. The prosecution had him reenact the crime in the Degnan home in public and in front of the press. On September 4, with Heirens' parents and the victims' families attending and Chief Justice Harold G. Ward presiding, Heirens admitted his guilt on the burglary and murder charges.

That night, Heirens tried to hang himself in his cell, timed to coincide during a shift change of the prison guards. He was discovered before he died. It was apparently despair that drove him to suicide:

"Everyone believed I was guilty...If I weren't alive, I felt I could avoid being adjudged guilty by the law and thereby gain some victory. But I wasn't successful even at that. "Before I walked into the courtroom my counsel told me to just enter a plea of guilty and keep my mouth shut afterward. I didn't even have a trial..."

On September 5, after further evidence was written in the record and the prosecution and defense made their closing statements, Ward formally sentenced Heirens to three life terms.

As Heirens waited to be transferred to Statesville Prison from the Cook County Jail, Sheriff Michael Mulcahy asked Heirens if Suzanne Degan suffered when she was killed. Heirens answered:

"I can't tell you if she suffered, Sheriff Mulcahy. I didn't kill her. Tell Mr. Degnan to please look after his other daughter, because whoever killed Suzanne is still out there."

Claims of innocence
Some observers have long questioned whether Heirens was actually guilty of the crimes he confessed to committing. Within days of his confession in open court, Heirens denied any responsibility. Mary Jane Blanchard, daughter of murder victim Josephine Ross, was one of the first dissenters, being quoted in 1946 as saying:

"I cannot believe that young Heirens murdered my mother. He just does not fit into the picture of my mother's death … I have looked at all the things Heirens stole and there was nothing of my mother's things among them."

Many examples of the collected evidence held against Heirens as evidence of his responsibility of his crimes have come into question as to there accuracy and validity.

1)The sodium pentathol interrogation
Heirens was subjected to an interrogation under the influence of sodium pentathol, popularly known as "truth serum" This drug was administered by psychiatrists Doctors Haines and Roy Grinker. Under its effects he allegedly stated that a second person named George Murman actually committed the killings.

This form of interrogation, which was done without a warrant and administered with neither Heirens's or his parent's consent, is believed to be of dubious value by most scientist today. Indeed, by the 1950s so-called truth serums had been largely discredited.

2) The polygraph test

In 1946, after Heirens underwent two polygraph examinations, Tuohy declared the results inconclusive. However, John E. Reid and Fred E. Inbau published the test findings in their 1953 textbook, "Lie Detection and Criminal Interrogation" seem to contradict that assertion. According to the book, the test was not inconclusive:

"Murderer William Heirens was questioned about the killing and dismemberment of six-year old Suzanne Degnan...On the basis of the conventional testing theory his response on the card test clearly establishes (him) as an innocent person."

3) The handwriting evidence has since been refuted by at least 4 experts and the claims of the original "expert" have been called into serious question

4) The sheer length of his investigation. He was questioned for 6 days and denied access to the defense attorney his parents had hired on day one.

5) Fingerprint evidence-

The most damming evidence that has been demonstrated toward Heirens's guilt has been the fingerprint evidence on the Degnan ransom note and on the door jamb of Frances Brown's bathroom door.

However, suspicions on the veracity of door jamb fingerprints found at the Brown crime scene has come into question, including charges that the police planted the fingerprint since it allegedly looks like a rolled fingerprint, the type that you would find on a police fingerprint index card.

Both sets of prints have come under serious question as to their validity, good faith collection and possible contamination; even the possibility of them being planted.

the validity of those prints on the Ransom Note has fallen under suspicion by some due to the timing of discoveries of fingerprints on the card, the broken chain of evidence, its handling by both inexperienced law enforcement and civilians.

The Degnan Ransom note was first examined by the Chicago Crime Detection Laboratory, but they couldn't find any usable prints on the note. Captain Timothy O'Connor took the note to the FBI crime laboratory in Washington, D.C. on January 18, 1946 with the idea of enlisting the FBI's more sophisticated technology in finding any latent prints. The FBI subjected the note to the then advanced method of Iodine Fuming to raise latent prints.

The process was similar in execution to today's polycyanoacrylate "super glue" fuming in which Cyanoacrylate is heated to a vapor. This vapor sticks to the skin oils on the friction ridges of a latent fingerprint. The older Nynhidrin method which is a liquid that is sprayed on paper to detect latent prints on paper is similar.

The FBI were able to raise two prints which they photographed promptly because unlike modern polycyanoacrylate fuming prints revealed by the Iodine process fade quickly. Captain O'Connor later testified at Heirens's sentencing hearing that he only saw two prints on the front of the note and did not mention the existence of any on the back.

Upon his return to Chicago he turned over the photographs of the revealed prints on the note to Sergeant Thomas Laffey, the Chicago Police Department's fingerprint expert. After his examination he stated to the press that they were "....so incomplete that it is impossible to classify them."

6) An alternative suspect

After the Degnan murder, but before Heirens became a suspect, Chicago police interrogated 42-year-old Richard Russell Thomas, a drifter passing through the city of Chicago at the time of Degnan's murder in the Maricopa County Jail in Maricopa, Arizona.

Police handwriting expert Charles B. Arnold, head of the forgery detail of the Phoenix police in Thomas’s hometown of Phoenix, Arizona noted similarities between the handwritten Degnan ransom note and Thomas’ handwriting when Thomas wrote with his left hand, and suggested that Chicago police investigate Thomas.

Upon being questioned, Thomas confessed to the crime, but he was released from custody after Heirens became the prime suspect. Others contend that Thomas was a strong suspect, to wit:

Thomas previously had been convicted of an attempted extortion — with a ransom note that threatened the kidnapping of a little girl. He also had a significant history of sexually abusing young girls including his own children and stepchildren.

As previously noted handwriting experts at the time state that the Thomas' ransom note from his previous conviction of extortion bears similarity in both style in regarding the wording and in form of the actual structure of the letters formed to the Degnan ransom note.

Thomas was in Chicago at the time of the Degnan murder.

At the time he confessed to the Degnan crime, he was awaiting sentencing for molesting his daughter.

Thomas had a history of violence, including spousal abuse.

Thomas was a nurse who was known to masquerade as a surgeon. He often boasted to his friends that he was a doctor and he was known to steal surgical supplies. Chicago Police had previously developed a profile of the Degnan killer as having surgical skills or being a butcher.

He frequented a car agency near the Degnan residence. Parts of Suzanne Degnan's body was found in a sewer across from that car agency he often visited.

Ironically, like Heirens, he was a known burglar.

He had confessed freely to the Degnan murder, although he would shortly recant it.

The Chicago detectives dismissed Thomas' claims after Heirens became a suspect. Thomas died in 1974 in an Arizona prison. His prison record and most of the evidence of his interrogation regarding the Chicago murders have been lost and/or destroyed.

Conclusions. Links for further reading at the bottom of image description
Obviously the Heirens seen in the photos above is confused and agitated. 6 straight days of interrogation, beatings, and sleep deprivation make his confessions worthless in my opinion. "Truth serum" (barbiturate cocktails) just make the subject easily suggestible and open to questions. He would have been under tremendous pressure to tel investigators what they wanted to hear, and a heavy dose of barbiturates would have made him that much happier to give them what they wanted.