The Witness boh-4 Read online

  Mrs. Watkins led Mr. Estivez up the stairs to the second floor, and then to the rear of the building, where the washer-driers were on display. She was not nearly as enthusiastic about her chances to make a sale to her potential customer as Mr. Katz had been about his. She had been in the credit business a long time, and had a feel for who would have credit and who wouldn't. Mr. Estivez did not strike her as the kind of man who held a steady job. But on the other hand, he might have hit his number or something and might have the cash.

  In a similar manner, over the next twenty minutes, seven more potential customers pushed open the door from South Street into Goldblatt amp; Sons Credit Furniture amp; Appliances, Inc., were greeted by Red Monahan and turned over to a member of the sales force.

  One of them, the third to come in the store, was a woman. She was later identified as Doris M. (Mrs. Harold) Martin, fifty-two, of East Hagert Street in Kensington. She had come in to look at carpet for her upstairs corridor and bedrooms after having seen the Goldblatt amp; Sons advertisement in that day'sDaily News. Red Monahan introduced Mrs. Martin to Mrs. Irene Dougherty, who took her by elevator to the third floor.

  The other six people to come in were all men. Two of them wore clothing suggesting they were either Muslims or at least had some connection with an African culture. All of them were, according to the race codification then in use by the Philadelphia Police Department, Negroid. Two of them, however, had such pale skin pigmentation that there was some question whether they were "really colored" or "maybe Puerto Rican or Mexican, or something like that."

  The last of the six men to enter the store, at approximately 1:32 P.M., described as a "black male, approximately six feet tall, thirty years of age, and weighing approximately one hundred seventy-five pounds," was wearing a "dark blue, waist-length woolen jacket similar in appearance to the U.S. Navy pea coat."

  Immediately upon entering Goldblatt amp; Sons, this suspect, subsequently identified as Kenneth H. Dome, aka "King," aka Hussein El Baruca, turned and began to bolt the door shut.

  "Hey, friend," Red Monahan asked as he walked up to him, "what are you doing?"

  "Shut your face, motherfucker!" Hussein El Baruca replied, simultaneously drawing a large, blue in color, large-caliber semiautomatic pistol (probably a Colt Model 1911 or 1911A1.45-caliber service pistol) and pointing it at Red Monahan.

  "Hey, you don't really want to do this-" Red Monahan said, whereupon Hussein El Baruca struck him, with a slashing backward motion of his right arm, in the face with the pistol, with sufficient force to knock him down and, it was subsequently learned, to cause a crack in Mr. Monahan's full upper denture.

  Then he raised the pistol to a nearly vertical position and fired it three times. One of the bullets struck a fluorescent lighting fixture on the ceiling, smashing a bulb, which caused broken glass and then a cloud of powder, from the interior coating of the bulb, to float down from the ceiling. Then, the fixture itself tore loose at one end, causing a short-circuit in the wiring. There was a flash of light, and then that entire line of lighting fixtures, one of two running from the front of the store to the rear, went off, reducing the light on the ground floor by half.

  "On your fucking bellies or I'll blow your fucking heads off!" Hussein El Baruca ordered.

  The three salespeople, two men and a woman, waiting for customers in the living-room suite, and Red Monahan complied with the order. The woman crossed herself, and her lips moved in prayer as she got onto her knees and then laid on the floor.

  Hussein El Baruca then turned back to the double doors and closed the Venetian blinds on them. There was a large display window on either side of the entrance. A complete bedroom set was on display in one window, and a complete bedroom set in the other. The "walls" behind the furniture in each window blocked the view of the interior of the store to passersby, and with the blinds on the doors now closed, there was no way anyone on South Street could look into Goldblatt amp; Sons Credit Furniture amp; Appliances, Inc.

  The sound of the three pistol shots fired by Hussein El Baruca was muffled somewhat by the upholstered furniture on the ground floor, and because the store was open from the front to the rear, where the Credit Department was located. But it was loud enough to be heard on the second floor, where it was correctly interpreted by Hector Carlos Estivez as the signal he had been expecting.

  He took what was probably a Smith amp; Wesson Military amp; Police.38 Special caliber revolver from where he had concealed it in the small of his back, held it in both hands at arm's length, and fired two shots at the glass viewing port of a Hotpoint drier that was sitting on the floor approximately six feet from him, and two feet to the left of Mrs. Emily Watkins.

  Mrs. Watkins yelped and covered her mouth with both hands.

  Hector Carlos Estivez when he saw that he missed the glass viewing port with one of his shots, and that the second had cracked but not smashed or penetrated the glass, said, "Shit!" and fired a third time. This time the thick, tempered glass of the viewing port broke.

  "On the floor, bitch!" Hector Carlos Estivez said, and Mrs. Watkins, now whimpering, dropped to her knees and then spread herself on the floor.

  The shots from Estivez's revolver were audible to Abu Ben Mohammed on the third floor, where Phil Katz was explaining to him that trying to get by with bottom-of-the-line cheap carpet was really not economy at all.

  "It's just like tires," Mr. Katz was saying, "what you're really buying is wear. You- What the hell was that?"

  "You're being robbed, motherfucker, that's what it is," Abu Ben Mohammed said, taking a large-caliber, single-action, Western-style revolver with plastic "pearl" grips from beneath his dashiki. He pushed the hammer back, cocking the pistol, and then fired at a threefoot-tall, stainless-steel cigarette receptacle that had been placed beside the elevator door.

  A hole appeared near the top of the receptacle, which then slowly tilted to one side, as if in a slow-motion picture, and then fell, dislodging a sand-filled glass tray, which shattered upon striking the metal elevator threshold.

  "Jesus H. Christ!" Phil Katz said.

  "Lay down on the floor," Abu Ben Mohammed ordered.

  "What?"

  "On the fucking floor, you heard me."

  "Yes, sir."

  The executive offices of Goldblatt amp; Sons Credit Furniture amp; Appliances, Inc., those of Mr. Samuel Goldblatt, Jr., and Mr. Harold Goldblatt, the secretary, and their secretary, Mrs. Blanche Steiner, forty-four, were at the right rear of the building. Mr. Joshua Goldblatt, the treasurer, maintained his office in the Credit Department on the ground floor.

  The sound of Abu Ben Mohammed's pistol shot attracted the attention of Mr. Samuel Goldblatt, Jr., who looked up from the work on his desk, and then stood up. When the executive offices had been built, one-way glass panels providing a view of the third-floor showroom had been installed. But they had never really worked, and eventually had been almost entirely covered up by a row of filing cabinets. The only way to see what was going on on the floor was to open the door and look.

  Mr. Goldblatt did so, and found himself looking into the barrel of Abu Ben Mohammed's revolver.

  "Hands up, honky!"

  "Yes, sir," Mr. Goldblatt said.

  "Oh, myGod!" Mrs. Steiner said, thereby attracting Abu Ben Mohammed's attention.

  "Out here, bitch!"

  "Do what he says, Blanche," Mr. Goldblatt said.

  Abu Ben Mohammed then took careful aim at Mrs. Steiner's IBM typewriter and fired. The machine seemed to lift slightly off the desk and then settled back. There was a faint screeching noise, and then, a short-circuit within the typewriter having caused a fuse to blow, the overhead lights in the executive office went out. Desk lamps on Mr. Goldblatt's and Mrs. Steiner's desks continued to burn and produced sufficient light to see.

  "Oh, myGod!" Mrs. Steiner wailed.

  "Please don't hurt anyone," Mr. Goldblatt pleaded. "We'll do whatever you want us to do."

  Abu Ben Mohammed then struck Mr. Goldbla
tt on the head, with a downward slashing motion of his pistol, causing him to fall to his knees and also causing a small cut on the (bald) top of his head.

  "Get the money and some rope," Abu Ben Mohammed ordered.

  "What?" Mrs. Steiner asked.

  "There's no money up here," Mr. Goldblatt said. "Honest to God there isn't!"

  "Bullshit!" Abu Ben Mohammed said. "Get the fucking money!"

  Mr. Goldblatt reached into the hip pocket of his trousers and came out with his wallet that he handed to Abu Ben Mohammed.

  "Take this," he said.

  Abu Ben Mohammed took the wallet, and from it not less than one hundred twenty dollars and not more than two hundred dollars and put the bills in a pocket of his dashiki. Then he threw the wallet at Mr. Goldblatt.

  "Give him your purse, Blanche," Mr. Goldblatt said.

  "Go get it," Abu Ben Mohammed said to Mrs. Steiner, and then added to Mr. Goldblatt, "If you're lying to me, if we find any money in that office, I'm going to blow your fucking honky head off."

  "I swear to God, believe me, we don't keep any money up here."

  "Then what's that fucking safe for?"

  "Business papers. Look for yourself."

  "Don't you tell me what to do, you honky motherfucker!" Abu Ben Mohammed said, and swung his pistol at Mr. Goldblatt's head again. Mr. Goldblatt was able to ward off most of the force of this blow with his hands, suffering only a minor bruise to his left hand.

  Mrs. Steiner took her purse from a desk drawer and offered it to Abu Ben Mohammed. A coin purse contained approximately sixteen dollars in bills, and there was approximately sixty dollars in her wallet. Abu Ben Mohammed removed these monies and placed them in a pocket of his dashiki.

  On the second floor, meanwhile, Hector Carlos Estivez had startled Mrs. Emily Watkins by ordering her to remove her shoes and stockings. When she had done so, he used one of the stockings to bind her hands behind her back. He then told her to lie down again, on her stomach, and when she failed to so quickly enough to satisfy him, he pushed her so that she fell.

  A minute or so later Mrs. Watkins was ordered to get up, and when she was not able to get to her feet quickly enough to satisfy Hector Carlos Estivez, he kicked her in the side, and then jerked her to an upright position.

  She saw then for the first time Mr. Ted Sadowsky, a Goldblatt employee specializing in televisions and stereo equipment, who had been in the front part of the building. He was being held at gunpoint, probably a Colt Police Positive.38 Special caliber snub-nosed revolver (or the Smith amp; Wesson equivalent) by a suspect subsequently identified as Randolph George Dawes, aka Muhammed el Sikkim, Negro Male, twenty-four, five feet nine inches, 160 pounds.

  "Tie the cocksucker up," Hector Carlos Estivez said to Muhammed el Sikkim, and handed him Mrs. Watkins's other stocking.

  Muhammed el Sikkim tied Mr. Sadowsky's hands behind his back with Mrs. Watkins's stocking, and then led the two of them to the stairway between the passenger and freight elevators and took them to the third floor, where he ordered them to get on the floor on their stomachs.

  "No fucking rope and no fucking money," Abu Ben Mohammed said to Muhammed el Sikkim.

  "Use stockings. Tell that kike bitch to take hers off."

  Mrs. Steiner was then forced to remove her panty hose, which were torn apart at the crotch and one part of them then used to tie her arms behind her back. Mr. Samuel Goldblatt was then tied in a similar manner, with the other leg of Mrs. Steiner's panty hose, and he and Mrs. Steiner were then forced to lay on their stomachs beside Mr. Sadowsky and Mrs. Watkins.

  Within the next five minutes, all Goldblatt employees, plus the one customer in the store, Mrs. Doris Martin, were brought to the third floor by the perpetrators. These included the three employees on duty in the first-floor Credit Department, the remaining salespeople, and Mr. Monahan.

  From this point, inasmuch as all Goldblatt employees (including Mr. Samuel Goldblatt, Jr.) and Mrs. Martin were lying on their stomachs on the floor of the third floor of the Goldblatt Building with their arms bound behind them, the only witnesses to the perpetrators' actions on the first and second floors of the Goldblatt Building were the perpetrators themselves.

  What is known is that three (or four) of the perpetrators (almost certainly including Abu Ben Mohammed, and probably including Hector Carlos Estivez and Muhammed el Sikkim) went to the Credit Department on the first floor and

  (a) Removed approximately four hundred eighty dollars in bills and coins-in-rolls from the cashier's cash drawer.

  (b) Broke into the interior compartments (three) of the safe. The safe itself was open at the time the robbery began. There was no cash in the safe.

  (c) Emptied the contents of a wastebasket (mostly waste paper) into the safe and set it afire.

  Sometime during this period, Mr. John Francis Cohn, forty-nine, of Queen Lane in East Falls, supervisor of the Maintenance Department of Goldblatt amp; Sons Credit Furniture amp; Appliances, Inc., apparently entered the building via a door on Rodman Street, the narrow alley at the rear of the building. This self-closing door was closed to the public and was normally locked. Mr. Cohn had a key.

  Apparently, Mr. Cohn then descended to the basement of the store by the stairwell between the freight and passenger elevators. He then uncrated (or completed uncrating) a special, demonstration model Hotpoint washing machine, constructed of a plastic material so that the interior of the apparatus was visible, and, using a hand truck, put the machine onto the freight elevator.

  He then apparently ascended to the second floor, where he had received instructions to install the machine in the Washer and Drier Department.

  He moved the machine to the rear of the second floor, and then apparently became aware that there were no salespeople on duty. (Or possibly wished to ascertain precisely where he was to set up the machine.) He then got back onto the freight elevator and descended to the first floor, and opened the door and the elevator gate.

  At this point, apparently, he saw the perpetrators and attempted to flee by moving the elevator. At this point, the perpetrators saw him, and at least two of them then fired their weapons at him.

  Mr. Cohn was struck by four bullets, two of.38 Special caliber and two of.45 Colt Automatic Pistol caliber. Three additional.38 Special caliber and one additional.45 ACP bullets were later found in the woodwork of the elevator.

  Mr. Cohn fell inward into the elevator.

  The perpetrators then entered the stairwell and went to the third floor. They reported to the others that they "had blown away a honky motherfucker on the elevator," and that the cash register had contained "only a lousy five hundred fucking dollars."

  A conversation, within hearing, but out of sight of the victims, was then held, during which one of the perpetrators announced he had found an inflammable fluid and soaked some carpet with it, and that he was going to "burn the fucking place down, and the honkies with it."

  Another perpetrator was heard to say, "It's time to get the fuck out of here."

  The perpetrators then, without further discussion, apparently ignited the inflammable fluid that had been poured upon a stack of carpet, descending to the first floor by means of the stairwell between the freight and passenger elevators, exited the building via a fire door in the rear of the building opening onto the alley (Rodman Street).

  Opening of the fire door set off an alarm, which both caused bells mounted on the front and rear of the building and in the finance and executive offices to begin to ring, and was connected with the Holmes Security Service. A Holmes employee then

  (a) Telephoned the Police Radio Room,

  (b) Attempted to telephone the Goldblatt Building to verify that the alarm had not been accidentally triggered, and on failing to have anyone answer the telephone,

  (c) Contacted a Holmes patrol unit in the area, informing him of the triggering of the alarm in the Goldblatt Building.

  ****

  The Radio Room of the Philadelphia Police Department is on the s
econd floor of the Police Administration Building at Eighth and Race Streets in downtown Philadelphia.

  "Police Emergency," the operator, a thirty-seven-year-old woman named Janet Grosse, said into her headset.

  "This is Holmes," the caller said. "I have a signal of a fire door audible alarm at Goldblatt Furniture, northwest corner, 8^th and South."

  The call from Holmes Security Service was treated exactly as any other call for help would be treated, except of course that Mrs. Grosse, who had worked in Police Radio for eleven years, seemed to recognize the voice of the Holmes man and made a subconscious decision from the phrasing of the report that it was genuine, and not coming from someone who got his kicks sending the cops on wild goose chases.

  "Got you covered," she said, which was not exactly the precise response called for by regulations.

  Eighth and South streets, Mrs. Grosse knew, was in the 6^th Police District, which has its headquarters at 11^th and Winter Streets. She looked up at her board and saw that Radio Patrol Car 611 was available for service.

  She opened her microphone.

  "Six Eleven, northwest corner, 8^th and South, Goldblatt's Furniture, an audible alarm."

  RPC 611 was a somewhat battered 1972 Plymouth with more than 100,000 miles on its odometer. When the call came, Officer James J. Molyneux, Badge Number 6771, who had been on the job eighteen years, had just turned left off South Broad Street onto South Street.

  He picked up his microphone.

  "Six Eleven, okay."

  Officer Molyneux turned on his flashing lights, but not the siren, and held his hand down on the horn button to clear the traffic in front of him.

  At just about this time, the ringing of the alarm bell had attracted the attention of Police Officer Johnson V. Collins, Badge Number 2662, who was then on foot patrol (Beat Two) on South Street between 10^th and 11^th Streets.