Crime-of-the-Week

Into the Sausalito, Calif, home of William Foristal Wood, cousin of the late William Howard Taft, walked his neighbor, Howard Meek. Once a ticket-taker on the Sausalito ferry, Meek had lost his job, become insane. He flourished a pistol, held Wood prisoner all night in his home. Next morning he took Wood to San Francisco, registered with him at an apartment hotel as father and son. When Meek went out during the day he bound his victim with wire, taped his mouth, muffled his head in a hood. He made Wood cook their meals, forced him to withdraw $200 from his bank, beat him when he was unable to get more.

After four days. Meek marched his prisoner out to the bank, forced him to withdraw $10,000. Afterwards they went into a gun shop, where Meek made Wood buy a new revolver. Returning to the apartment, they passed through crowded, bustling Crystal Palace Market. Meek decided he wanted to eat some walnuts, went with his prisoner into a shop to buy them. When he stepped up to the counter. Wood spied a policeman. Suddenly nerved, he cried: "Look out, that man has a gun!" and started to run. Meek wheeled around, fatally wounded the policeman in the chest, then backed slowly away. After him came a crowd of butchers and shoppers. One of the butchers flung a knife at Meek. He dodged it, ran outside, stopped suddenly four feet from a plainclothes man. He started shooting again, hit a woman. The plainclothes man neatly drilled a bullet into Meek's heart. Terror-stricken Mr. Wood was found shivering in a grocery shop.

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